How lichen covered gravestones
Hide fossilized human debris,
Bones that clattered next
To the permafrost, as the winter
Ends and spring begins.
Snowdrops flowering at will
And summer happens.
I stumble to a yard, with our dog,
Walking through a dandelion
Field, uprooting tiny yellow blooms
As I run across a yard of blooming weeds,
Holding a rose without thorns,
To a moment of genuflection,
When the stubborn tears water
And the knee is soiled,
Like a farmer, who is planting a sapling.
How I see dandelions afloat
Like an ocean, making waves,
The one rose I keep beside you,
Fading faster without,
Stem and roots, that suck like
Straws, water and nutrients,
One rose, that will die in brevity,
While the dandelions release pollen,
Breezing in the wind, wheezing
My lungs, giving me a dose of hay fever.
How I lost you, like a boat
That was untied from a wharf,
Lost to the tide of time, while
I see you in daytime and night, in two dreams,
Like a Marie Celeste, that plays
Havoc with me, while every month
I now come to the place I know best,
Your home, the gravestone, like a boulder
Standing its ground, while your soft tissue
Fades, as bones remain, as I fold
My knees on the ground, like
A slave worshipping his master,
I see bees on blooms, everywhere I look,
Butterflies making merry
And in this horizon of activity, I wipe
Away a gravestone, that gives,
You away to the stranger and,
While I bathe my nostrils, with more pollen,
Which reminds me of the little things,
The apron, the butter knife, the cookbook,
The onions on the counter, exfoliated,
Peeled, by your palms, while
Tears befall, like now, still they
Rarely irritate. How time, like
The ocean makes its own light. And I
Switching off my heart, too petrified
Of moving on, letting my beard
Like slimy moss, gather on my face,
Tiny tendrils that flow in the wind,
Some turning silver, as I remember
Those Sunday morns, you shaved me clean,
And made love to my fresh face
Saying how the beard is scratchy,
As I look up at you, your face
How miles away, I am, and your face
Agonizing, your elastic lips,
Slightly lodged open, your tongue
In fear of being bitten, your eyes
Mirroring me, how Sunday
Morning were special, lazy, easy, pretty
And how all was over, just before
Brunch, my tongue now blue as kerosene,
While I look at you, brighter than
A Guinea coin, darker than the moon,
The sunlight creeping through,
I on her lap, ruffling tiny tendrils
Of black hairs, planting on her
Baby kisses, blowing a little wind
While she picks my grey hairs, silvering strands.
How I remember, your little undergrowth,
Like the tendrils of lichens,
On a gravestone, how I tasted
Them with kisses, those fleeting occupancies,
They weren’t just weeds, like dandelions,
They had just as much pluck
As what lied below. As I feel a little
Thread of you on my tongue, brokered by the wind,
How it grips me hard and with purchase,
How your taste still lives in me,
The butterflies on my tongue,
The calla lilies in you, a syndrome
Of how we pollinated love,
Making touch, a duet of ethereality,
The sapphic moments that pass,
As she is blown away, waking up
The neighbors, fluting a piccolo
While pitching her tent, in heaven.
Kite Dreams 