Tag: Love
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A Prayer for Beloved Mothers
Beloved, mother this day you will eat, in this body of trying, the bread of hope. Beloved, mother this day you will bathe, amidst this body of breaths, in the fragrance of rose water. Beloved, mother this day you will hear, inside this sounding body, the soft laughter of your children. Beloved, mother this night…
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Hot Wax on a Wool Dress
After three days of black rags over mirrors,three days of the open coffin in the parlor,Nana’s eyes closed, unable to see beyond-Lena, needed to run around the backyard,holding the hand of the first living thing that would follow her around, round, round.She was wearing the last wool dress Nana knitted for her (a green, white…
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Strawberries
Abuela bought them, the strawberries, plump , sweet, spotted, ripe for tasting from the roadside market- the one with the burlap heaven flapping in the humid air, on a day that smelled of smoke and incense. I wanted to eat them, but she slapped my hands away. The strawberries hadn’t traveled far- torn up from…
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What to Do with All the Love that Remains
The most beautiful thing is always the thing in front of you, my mother use to say. And she was a beauty, always smiling, a beauty markfollowing in front. To see such beauty was to die a little in the heart each day- Each day to give your heart away until there is noting left.Love…
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Juanito’s Dream
Juanito grew up with a velveteen rabbitin his hand and a gun by his side.On his sixth birthday his junkyard owning Dadgave him a clutch of rainbow balloons.He climbed the rusted skeleton of a Cadillac, held the beautiful Mylar to the sky and prayed to be taken to heaven.The answer was the sour tasting rain.On…
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A Desert Story
The desert scorched their lips,broke the heart of their embrace-a pink blister on their foreheadsthe sun’s reminder on how impossible it will be to hold on to these knowings.He will be left standing alone in the swirl of shadows and dust,abandoned by the mountains,living only in the patina of dwellings turning to relics. She will…
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Night Cat
Mine, mimes the black cat putting out his paw to her darkness. Let’s walk in the wood, black eyes imply,the scent of shadows rising from him.The snow, the city, the night dissolves. Mornings to come he will purr to her face.She hears a word of fur and thinks it’s love.Nights, he will slip out like…
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Parrots Call the Colors of a 1000 Names Remembered
They meet everyday in the vermillion walltender colors of viridescent and lapis lazuli thatcaress the blood before it stains then fades,calling the colors of a thousand names rememberedThey drop their cracked seeds to be mashed into the mud of the cobbled street belowpreening each other’s feather to a quiet array,moaning softly, butting heads in ritual…
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My Happiness Is Defined in You
To see what I see as beautiful. and not ever hide your little joys, knowing the sun rises, stars don’t fall, and all our Chinese meals are poems.
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Love’s Kiss Is a Parisian Night
Love’s kiss—a Parisian nightatop the Eiffel Tower. The world below—boxed macarons on a blue boulevard. All lovers- Louvre exhibits knowing only Giaconda smilesbefore la petite mort.
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New Year’s Eve Comes and Goes
A friend I’ve know for but a year came a knock, knock, knocking at my door.He was cold and thin, and even though he wanted in, I did not open the door.He was once such a grand delight but now he was so so such a bore. Knock, knock, knock, his knuckles rappedagain, again. I…
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The Bench
When the oak fell in the stormhe carved a bench for her.He placed it in the best grove shade asa reminder the bench once bloomed.Still, rays of light split through the leavesand the bench, even in winter, was warm.Here she knew fully his silent love for her,even after he fallen silent, buried nearby.Eventually, it became…
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Porcelain Years
Our marriage is old enough to vote now and on this our porcelain anniversary I vote “Yes, I do,” over and over again. A score of fine filigree plates I will gift us, two broken to match the fragile times, the eighteen days past the towers fall when we married amidst grief and joy.…
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Everything Is You
Kiss me. Devour me. Press yourself to me until inside and forever let me know you are there. Every breath is you. Every smell is you. Everything I taste has the savor of you. I look around and everything is you. Noise settles into the house with the timber of you. The gentle cloth of…
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A Dying Poet’s Final Sonnet
Bury me not in a high tomb of gloom on days sacred to all your lonely heart nor scatter my ashes in the pale moon on June’s or September’s early-late start. Mix me in with all my good beastlies‘ dust, one third reserved for Elsi’s sweet embrace, two parts crushed into diamonds that not…