That word suggests ultimate devotion, complete commitment, without fanfare, doubt, or fluctuation. Its focus, sincere affection beyond question, unchallenged by all wavering desires that flutter away, pours like water over stone
What? You ask as if my reply had skewed our conversation, its meaning, its focus on ordinary words, their simple, honest thoughts we’d waited so long to express. Clarity had come as an informant each of us knew yet hesitated to trust with revived affection, its stippled emotions.
Linger. Our snow will melt, slick roads will dull like doormats. Our sun will return bright and vigorous as ever. Our seasonal respite welcomes our desire to embrace for days or weeks; we are time’s distractions, reliable harbingers of spring.
Listening to Suite Judy Blue Eyes, thinking of her, her Judy-like brown eyes, her questions that claim my feelings as if images stuck in her mirror. My shell of truth has been pierced by her stare, pressed into lyrics only she will record.
Deep within resides a poem I regard as an unseen visitor; it’s presence clings to mystery, stirs emotions bound to anticipation. Have you noticed me, a searcher, dazed, yet trolling for stanzas much too evasive to catch?
I’d found them, quilts from generations ago, old histories, handmade scrolls, stitched from scraps or old clothes, spare blankets, sewn-in memories to wrap both black and white babies when winters froze before our Civil War.
Transferred, that concept, beauty, to a fifty-yard pass, its ark a rainbow might envy, its sure-handed catch a combination of concentration as perfect as your stare from a crowded room when I wonder if its reception is mine to snare.
She didn’t know the Doobie Brothers’ anthem, Long Train Runnin’. Its gut-punching question, Without love, where would you be now? captures the reality of our love, as if caring were a necklace she dons on occasion. I grit my teeth as I hear the song’s refrain.
Distance, measured in heart beats rather than miles, loses significance when, pressed against my chest, my cell messages you, you in the dark where your bed saves my space after your sleep comes. My heart seems content, its brief broadcast complete.
I will not harm you, will not, won’t knock on your door to unravel your well-woven cocoon, its layers so tightly wrapped I know they’re not mine to unwind, only yours for undoing reluctantly until you trust my love, then welcome my caring, embrace our connection.
Current Issue
Showcase Magazine
