A sense of it.

Love lies in the eye
first sight, long lines of grace
but grief is tactile
a punctuated blast of friction
the stunning blow.
It strokes the temples
with sticky heat
and numbs the fingertips.
Grief shakes the spine
clenches the lips
locks the jaw.
Love may lift the heart
but grief bruises the soul.

The last rites of the sacred stilettos.

We held a funeral

for your Jimmy Choos

scripted after the ceremonies

we performed for the goldfish

who survived long enough to be named.

Already your feet have flattened

and you move through the days 

in perpetual company.

We raise our glasses

to stilettos

and the rush of city streets.

Still flats are no bad fate

with your feet firm on the earth

and the future waiting with you.

Food for thought

Before biology, I believed
the brain grew ripe and heavy
like a pomegranate
with leather stiff skin
for protection
but if you once broke through
it would spill out
a thousand juicy sections
red slick kernels
swollen taut with tartness
and inside each fleshy nub
a seed
from which could grow most anything
a thought, a dream, a right hook,
even love
if planted in the right soil.

Fear of Heights

The stairs had been my terror
too many in the house
steep polished spirals
each ledge high as his hip.
When he crawled, I transformed:
a sheepdog harrying a lamb
shutting gates, doors, a traveling citadel.
The doorbell was my downfall.
Scrambling to sign and return
I turned, too late.
The little hands stretched, overbalanced
tumbling forward and--
not down.
He drifted above the bannister
giggling, reaching for the chandelier
until I screamed
snatching the corner of his shirt
a squirming helium child
till the cloth tore loose
and he soared upwards
the red fabric floating behind him:
his first cape.

Snap shot.

A discrete shadow
to the feather weight and meat heft
precise
a thousand geese strung out across the sky
as a solitary bird flies south

The time elapse
between a motion and reaction
becomes an ellipse
suggesting transition

A thousand wing beats
thrust up and down
no progress
teleportation

a single solitary bird
a streak across the sky
reality stitched tight and bound hard
printed and displayed.

Winter Migration.