Belonging

Not long at all
after we started dating, we declared our song to be “Ho Hey”−
which is a stupid name for a song so we refer to it instead
by the lines of its chorus & these lines, I bought for you
on your birthday with a frame & now hanging
above our bed
are the words, “I belong to you,
you belong to me.”  I read recently
that:
“There is a reason the word belonging has a synonym
for want at its center; it is the human condition”
& I suppose this is true, but the thing is, though now
I can’t imagine how I’d live (or ever did) in your absence,
belonging either to or with another was something
that I always feared; autonomy, the language that I spoke,
the rift that I created to exist between us & somehow,
in spite of this, you caught me & being caught
turns out to not be bad
at all.  In ways, to be sustained in union produces certain
new-found freedoms.
Shortly after I ceased resisting, I found
encompassed in your arms, room to move in brand new ways.
                                   Allurement
sifting previous notions, softening
the hard ground I’d stood upon, so flight became an option. 
Beneath my feet, the sturdy rocks
I’d forever taken for granted began to shift like old, rickety
floor boards in a dangerously aging house
& jumping now, a bit more promising…

another strange
fact of speech discovered in what it means to cleave−
the unwritten understanding that inherent in the explanation
of is a choice:  to split from or stick fast to or also
both if interpreted in biblical terms
& I think
my reasons for remaining
in my alienage were simply
tools
constructing makeshift cliff I wished someone would
save me from, quite confused on the differences between
what was desire & what was need until you kissed me
& my bones turned into wings.  I still can’t speak to you
of love without a stutter but at least the subject
no longer renders me completely silent.  Your courage
baffles me & fuels my own.  Together, we
compose unspoken,
unmatched melody reviving romance.  Released
from cloud-capped
captivity, I’m flourishing feet on ground.

The Sunday Whirl

Figure of a Man

My husband whose speech is suave,
            but only for me
Whose heart is worn upon his sleeve
Whose hair is the dark of a starless night
Whose hair is soft as a kitten’s fur
Whose skin is smooth anointing oil
Whose words make gentle waves
I wallow in like at a lazy river
at a water park, like a hippo
in a mud bath, like in riches
Whose words are filling like the cream
of breakfast pastries, sweet
         and delicious
Whose teeth are white and flashy
precious pearls
The teeth of an actor
in a toothpaste commercial
Whose tongue is an orphaned child begging,
            tugging
            the heart
strings
My husband whose tongue is the monsoon
wind bringing rain to the desert
And is the cherry topping the whipped cream
topping the ice cream sundae
Whose eyelids are as innocent as a swallow’s
My husband whose feet are the soft tread
of an approaching cat
My husband whose eyebrows are sepals
hooding
his soul,
enveloping developing buds of roses
My husband whose grin crinkles the corners
of his eyes like toes curled in
Whose toes are witch fingers
Whose fingers are spades for finding
            fossils
and stunt doubles for tightrope acts
in circus films
My husband with a back that is a field
of stories
That bewitches
My husband whose back rolls
like a centipede’s, like an accordion
Whose shoulders are passwords
                             and secrets
divulged
My husband whose wrists
are the chills in a haunted house
Whose wrists are floorboards creaking
in a house that has held many dreams
My husband whose lips are the memories
brought back from a souvenir
Are a pop song
Whose arms are long branches of a willow
and the arms of tongs willing and able
to withstand heat
Whose chest is a down pillow
to rest my head upon when sleeping
Whose falling and rising motions are like
a tide at swell
My husband whose stomach is stirred
by hunger for me
With lips that are the last bite
of a favorite dessert
Whose soul is a room I make my bed in
My husband with the eyes of a tundra
sunrise glow
My husband whose heart is the tapping
of stones sent
to a window at midnight by a secret courter
And is the rim of the steepest cliff
I’ve stood on, calling out to hear my echo
And is half of mine

Punctuates

The rain first falls wishful,
                       wanting more.
More than the sidewalk,
more than the gutter, more than the elementary
school blacktop
empty now of lanky players.

It falls wistful
        like
      a grandmother breathing,
                       yearning
    for marshes; dry, praying
                               prairies;
forgotten ghost town
forests.

Lacking these,
              the rain jockeys
for attention, pounds
              the storm
              takes the city siege,
                     sends drops down
in droves,
     driving citizens toward safety.
     
People rush awkwardly for cover;
            hurrying
though careful of the slippery pavement,
and the brimming puddles.

The murky morning,
warning enough for fools,
clouds
constructing mood,
          though most paid no mind, ignored
the smattering, rolling roars,
distant but close enough to hear.

Now the rain grows into rhythm,
                                               heckling
with her timing and her beat
                       all
unlucky souls huddled under quagmire
and awnings.
A few brave pedestrians
with their umbrellas and their purpose
march on through the magic
         happening
between the cracks
      where the soil silkens.

The people
befuddled by the weather
though it has run for eons on such
cyclical
                   systems.
The people with their gear, lamenting
frizzing hair
like moisture is akin to electric shock.
The writers
            isolating in their safe house
coffee shops, penning sulky
           stories,
adding for affect a necessary storm,
like their minds
are individual nations unsurpassed
and can only thrive at selective span
and far away from others.
The people feigning casualty
walking slow like they don't care.
The stuffy, puffy business folk
                  peeking out
                            bespattered
windowpanes,
huffing, checking watches,
                                  wondering
if they can still make lunches.
And just across the downtown street
                    of the high rise buildings
                                          sit the sleazy bars
where patrons come rain or shine.
Some weathering the deluge
just to get their whisky, rum, their gin.
The rain
       respects this - at least they thirst.
Their counterparts across the way only know
                                    of hunger
and not a thing of pain.

The rain ceases razor pelt, falls short
        and punctuates.

The Sunday Whirl

Beyond

Oh, leaping heart, frisky
                            flitting like birds from
                                            branch to branch, on a primrose path,
                                                 never pausing long enough to truly
                                                                                      see the new,
 blue wild or hear the lyrics of the  brook; her come away tune.

    Oh,
       heart, these days, your own song rings hollow, listless,
                              searching phantom pleasures
while beyond these walls you've built, there's glory.

Fly beyond.
Fly high, beyond the bounds of rocky confines of mutable moments.
Perch,
      heart,
lofty and noiseless, listen to the silence of your desire.
                   Soar above dry land, dry seasons.
Flight is yours
but fly.
 Rush no more.
Although, the land is safe,
you were born for air.

At Jingle Poetry and The Sunday Whirl