Poetry Sunday

Let’s do that wild thing we used to do all the time,
Going to some place we’d never been, not speaking the language,
But not having to talk to anyone else to be understood
As our traveling adventure selves, quick to delight in this beautiful place
We don’t know and never will, except for the time that we haven’t lived yet.

We will conjure abandoned trash into incredible treasure, Translate losing our way into finding hidden cafe set between columns So wait staff must insinuate themselves between palms and tables In expert, hospitable dance to serve, to smile, to inhabit…

It is easier to love you when you weren’t here.
The clamor and chaos are mine and mine alone.
I don’t know where everything is — or anything specific for that matter —
But I know where to seek and find, give up and find another way.

From a distance, you are easier to love.
Shimmering energy doesn’t invade private pleasures in couch, book, cup.
Crumbs don’t skitter under the bread box for me to swipe away.
Doors are closed, cabinets are straight order, arranged for short person me.

When you’re two-dimensional or your voice beams across distance, I can…

Justine emerged from her blanket cocoon and sniffed the air.

Cinnamon toast.

Everything was going to be alright.

It was safe to get up, good to stretch and snug robe around her waist and zigzag down the hall to the kitchen. Later, she’d deal with the aftermath of their too-late night and too-serious fight.

For now, Mike was whistling in the kitchen, conjuring cinnamon toast that would make angels rage and devils sing.

That was something Bishop Gerald would say. He didn’t say much, but when he did, it was worth listening to. Not his sermons. Those were terrible, snore-inducing…

Fiction Friday

He was one hundred years old when he died.

She was only ninety-eight years old when he died. Everyone said she was remarkable and would be fine when she accepted his being gone.

She wasn’t.

She was totally healthy, as fun and alive as any of her great grandchildren. Doctors marveled at her old woman self with no wobbles or forgetting things other people thought were important.

Look how well she’s doing, said the pill pushers, putting away their unwanted soothing.

She’ll go on forever said everyone, oblivious to her and her not wanting to go on without him.

Robyn…

Her memories make her who she is, define and shape this day
When she struggles to remember that time and that person,
When everyone was young and no one knew they were fragile.

She rummages through her memories, tattered, softly blurred ones
Interrupted by jagged, horrible jolts of shock that changed everything,
Defined the Before and After that everyone agrees upon, except for her.

She doesn’t want to forget anything, not the horrors and the joys
Of first love, first kiss, first breakup, nothing you’re urged to set free
In the interest of moving on, of learning from your mistakes.

…

Now that we’re coming out of lockdown, winter, whatever it is we all went through, we can get on with life.

Now things will go right. We’ll buckle down, move on, pick up the pieces, and get going again.

All it will take is this one thing and all will be well. It might be a shot, a move, a marriage, a divorce, but whatever it is, it is huge. It may be hard. …