Synthesize

When all is said and done,
what have I given
and have you taken?
When one day we sit across the room from each other,
legs crossed, the silence suspended in the air
like a ray of light on a late winter afternoon,
what will there be to say to each other?

When that day we look back, will it all
weave together in a sprawling
tapestry just coming to light?
Or will the strands and loose ends
clutter the room like dust bunnies
piling underneath the couches
and in the crevices in between?
Will we think, yes, that was
a good life we lived together?
Or will we despise one another
for having wasted each other's?

Now, late at night, as you
and the animals lie asleep around me,
I scramble for a coherent thought,
for meaning in your pattern of breath,
for something to sink my teeth into.
I wonder as I push sleep aside...
And then, exhausted,
I let it take over me.

(Edited; originally posted on August 02, 2008)

Tired

To my mother

You're tired, I know
From dancing barefoot
On shattered graves
From lifting the sun
Onto the ground
From pulling the days
One after the other
From your mouth...
You're tired, I know
From bearing the weight
Of your own breath
From breaking your word
Once more, in silence
From letting the dust grow
At the crevices of your lungs
And in between your toes...
You're tired, I know
From my weight
From the bird that's pecked
Its own feathers
Until it's coughed a furball
Rounder than itself...
You are tired
From the sounds of the same promises
From the dawns lying into the light
From the way your face looked
From the corner of her eye...
From his grey hair, you're tired
From another winter scaling off the back of his hand
From his smile, waning and unwavering
From the eyes that glow into the dusk
Like embers at the end of the talk
Like the night when she peeled off the mandarin
And squeezed it into his eyes...


(originally posted on November 01, 2005)