For Sara

Her voice wraps my body in cool recognition
That Venus incarnate has addressed my meager form
Slowly, she crosses her legs, caramel over cream
Little shafts of ivory light gleam through lips
Sweet and thin, like a peach slice.
She squints at her book
Two gentle whispers of hair
Furrow over fine black feathers
That cradle the most heartbreaking orbs
I have ever seen:
Drops of hazel green
In a snow-white sea.
Her jaw tenses, carved out of marble
And her small, spidery fingers
Run through autumn hair.
She is beauty, full and free
And she spoke to me.

Truro, MA

A summer that lay in memory's wake, still brighter than the melancholy squalls of tedious present, I devoured words that spelt my soul in detail, from sentence to serif, spilling from lips almost too familiar for comfort. Her breath was hot on my cheek, and she tasted of a rare, undiscovered fruit I had never known, and would never taste again. We spoke without tongues, felt each other miles apart. One night of bitter beauty, lasting an eternity, shorter than a kiss.

That was love, I know. Now I've shed naiveté and embraced the jaded faux-intellectualism and faux-maturity of faux-adulthood. And I could write her off as a hormonal pipe-dream, the ideal girl who barely existed. Still...she pulls at my mind, ever so slightly. The occurrences are less frequent, but I feel them in full. Were she mine, were we to escape the prison of time's grasp on that blessed meeting ground where sand met sea and lips met lips, were we to cultivate the freshly planted seeds of infatuation rather than having them cruelly torn out by their still-green roots, how would we have fared? Would we have failed, like so many of my generation do, citing love found too difficult to keep up and love unknown too difficult to attain? Or is there a sort of protection in blooming early, before twenty-something disenchantment can settle in and eat away at your tolerance for the one thing still beautiful, still fantastical in a world too old for magic and cliché?

From the Fringes of Familiarity

She's given so much to me

In paper dreams

Left kisses on the creases

Of my well-worn longing

She seems sublime

Regardless of social climate

Or clumsy dress

I paint her in broad, lush color

Fix diamonds upon her essence

In hopes the decadence of my effigy

Will bleed through a stony face

To caress my fragile heart

Into vital love again

Oh! Break the lock, find the key to my trepidation

Cast the heavy doubt aside

And find the smallest piece

Of a long-lost letter

That begins with a look

And ends with a limp

From my fractured frame I write this ode

For the coldest shoulder I will never hold.

Untitled

There was a tree in my backyard
Swelled thick with New England's nurturing milk
It served me when days of knee scrapes and grilled cheese were commonplace
It sang through summer's languorous swelter
Offering respite to the feathered melodies that frequented its spidery, sturdy fingertips
In winter it hummed, shuffling off the caked-on snow
Summing the season up to a glaze of naked frustration
A small sacrifice for spring's paradise

As knees grew softer and palates finer
It sensed a coming coda
By spring's retreat
Its fears were consummated
The harbingers of decay came
With screaming blades
And within a minute's whisper
The song was ended

Castrated limbs wept with sap
The sun seared its wounds
Cauterizing the once mighty caregiver
And blessing its fragile branches
With all the mercy it could muster
With a cry of gentle defeat it fell
Returning to its mother's cradle
The final note a resounding tone
of glory destroyed

There was a tree in my backyard
Its memory beckons me
But the song is too faint to follow
Only a hollow of dirt and grief remains.

Honey Skin

sweet-smelling lavender hangs in your hair
let's lay for awhile, and listen to the rain
play its beat on the ground. Watch it
bead on your skin, ever hesitant, and
roll down your shoulder, swimming
through the contours of your back
to that spot that makes you laugh
kiss me, and stop these words
from spilling onto the wet grass
they're wasted on
the inconstant seasons
only your smile can inspire them
only your mouth can receive them
only your soul can decipher them.

Last Call, Lover

I knew from the start
You're the wrong path to tread
But your sweet music
Fogged up, filled up my head
Now your cheeks are chapp'd, hot
Chased by words raw and cold
But the barbs that you blast
At my frame barely hold
'Cause they sound too damn old
They flap and they fold
This story's been told.

Feelings grow staler
Than air in our sheets
Thick with the dry, bitter
Taste of defeat
Fondness fades like
Your little black dress
Minute flecks of life
In a dull gray mess
Shells of ourselves
Overflow in a box
Where your love was kept
Under heaviest lock
Now I pick up my dignity
Slip hand through sleeve
And I start to leave
But it's tattered and worn
And the earth's under leaves
There's wind in the eaves
It's too cold to leave
Please, don't let me leave.