Life's Surprises

Life's surprises
come in all shapes and sizes,
you know.
Friday afternoon,
one came to me in you.
My perfectly maintained composure
was all of a sudden unmaintained.
My needs came alive
and sucked you into me,
and somehow you, my giver,
were nourished by it
and uncovered a few needs of your own.
It feels good to feel this good,
and this feels SO good
that dare we label it love so soon?
Its glitter may be fools' gold,
you know,
and I can't help but wonder:
Did I dream you up
to fill a hole in me?
Are you a figment of my fantasies
in the flesh?
If it turns out that you're
just an innocent bystander
temporarily overcome
by a counterfeit passion,
then I will know I dreamed you.
But even if we discover
that we're not pieces
of one another's puzzles,
remember please:
Together we touched places
outside of our realities,
and it felt good
to let our perfectly maintained composures
go unmaintained --
if just for a little while.
Whoever you turn out to be
or not to be,
I'm glad I came to know you
last Friday afternoon.

Musical Memories

Why do you think

we always choose as favorites

the songs that penetrate

the deepest

and touch the sorest

of our wounds?

Is it because we're all

musical masochists,

or is it simply

that remembering

through melody

is medicine

for the soul?

The Door

I let you come in
this time.
I let you feel me
from the inside out.
I let you know me
even though
my trusted instincts
advised against it.
I watched you watch me,
taking me in
& memorizing all my parts.
Your interest
is interesting
& how could I
be expected to resist.

I let you come in
this time,
exploring all my
secret spaces
& allowing you
to see where I hide.
Odds are
I'll regret it,
but I believe
it's been written:

Every wall
has to have a door
somewhere.

And I think
you've found mine.

Even Today

We remind me

of one of those old movies
I used to cry in,

where the hero
and the heroine
part ways

(ever so sadly)

in the end.

I always felt so frustrated,
you know,
that their love
never seemed to have a chance
under life's circumstance.
Maybe that's why,
even today,
I wonder how you and I
could have ever
let it get away.

The Sea

In variegated shades of grays and greens,
the sea beckons
& spits her silver seltzer
haphazardly
against rocks sculpted by the blows
of her mighty fists.
Her power rumbles sounds of warning
to those who would cross her threshold,
to those who would dare to take from her
the life, in untold species,
that clings to her massive womb.
Respect is all she asks
& trespassers who don't pay heed
to her demands
run the risk of incurring the wrath
of her ominous rage.
Her nature IS nature at its most magnificent;
and though her mastery goes unquestioned,
her splendor invites...
the ultimate challenge.

Ficus Futility

I gave it up for dead.

It's little slips of cool green
had yellowed and twisted
into shriveled flimsiness,
exhausted
and ready for dust.
I watched it happen,
helpless.
I wanted to save it,
I tried;
but overwatering
diminished to underwatering
and just-right-watering
was unwittingly denied.
The sun
the nutrients
the fertilizer
for all their good intentions
burned blotches,
scorched fiery edges
in protest.
An ugly scar to my decor,
I gave it up for dead.
I shuffled it off
to my back-porch mortuary
where all my other
disappointments and failures
stand in witness
to acts unatoned.
Graying tributes to my laziness,
they await unfinished fate:
a proper burial
in a dempsy dumpster grave.
I gave them up for dead
but I never disposed of the bones.

Lady Guilt

Responsible

Reliable

Dependable

Me.

Synonyms.

I gather all my duties,

assignments,

and obligations

in my apron,

taking great care

that none are broken

or damaged.

I polish them

and place them

in their rightful places

in my life,

allowing them to suckle,

spoonfeeding them

with little bits of me,

until sometimes

I feel like a mass of holes --

still, somehow, never empty.

I live in awe

of all those around me

who calmly chuck

intrusions,

impositions,

and invasions,

as if they were last week's leftovers.

Why doesn't that

merciless Lady Guilt

(whose mighty slap I know so well)

crawl up their spines

as she's so fond

of doing to mine?

In the Evening

In the evening, my griefs come to me
one by one:

One that I would have sworn
had long since been vanquished
(a relic from my past)
creeps in unexpectedly,
slithers across the floor,
and makes itself quite comfortable
in the corner of my room.

Another,
while my eyes are averted elsewhere,
drips indolently off the wall,
puddles on the rug,
and starts to reek,
demanding my attention.

And still another,
familiar as my old pillow,
wriggles in,
nestles in the hollow
between my breasts
where it can feel my heart beat.
It knows it is welcome there,
an ardent, aching friend.