These Hands

I do not know

the moment when my hands became so untouchable.

I do not know when they lost their

softness and grace.

I do not know when they became the kind of hands that

work too hard for

too little reward,

or when they became hands that cannot

touch or be touched with

tenderness.

I can no longer imagine these scaled fingers

dressing a doll, or

holding a baby, soft and naive.

My hardened knuckles

crack and burn and roughly brush my cheek,

like a bearded kiss.

I do not know these strange appendages

and they astound me,

for I did not notice them appear.

Cheri, Mon Amour

Je t'adore pour toujours, mon amour.


Tu me manques, I miss you
when I forget to realize I'm doing it.


Je t'aime pour le temps-de-loup
et l'aube et la rosee. 


Through seasons and storms
and rain and mist, je t'adore.


J'aime tes baisers comme ils me
brosser les paupieres.


My skin seems to hum at
your whispering touch.


J'aime tes levres comme ils
chuchotent mon nom.


Your voice is like music (les cloches),
a thousand choirs.


J'aime les yeux comme ils 
regardent dans las mienne.


Glisten and speak,
and tell me every secret thing.


Je t'aime, je t'adore, 
pour toujours,
mon amour, mon amour.

On Top of the World

I don't notice the rock scrape my elbow as I press further over the edge, longing for breathable air through the crowded observation deck. I seem to have discovered a secret. The crowds are drawn to the brightest lights, the tawdriest spectacle, the other side of the observatory. But I like this view. Central park, dark now, is a gaping hole ripped out of the center of uptown Manhattan, and the smaller buildings cast a soft golden glow over everything else. It's amazing to me how people overlook this. Even my friends are shouting and laughing beside me. But it seems like their voices are fighting through water, distorted and disoriented and unclear. My eyes fill momentarily with tears for this city I will never forget, for hoping to always come back, and for the fact that these people, my friends, hardly know me. But he knows me. I know he does, because he doesn't make a gaudy display, interrupting my solitude. He simply touches my arm to let me know he's there. We stare at the golden haze. When we both know it's time, we face each other. His face is lit sideways by the lights of the lower decks, illuminating his dark eyes glimmering with the same tears as mine.


"How are you doing?" he asks, putting a gentle hand on my shoulder.


"Fine--holding it together," I reply, searching him with my gesture as if to say and you? I place my hand on the side of his waist for barely more than a second. 


"Me too." We look at each other, understanding. 


I wonder how we look to people who don't know us. A tall, brunette boy with his hand on the arm of a slender girl in an elegant dress. She brushes a fleck of something off the shoulder of his pristine, grey jacket. They hold each others' eyes, cinnamon and cobalt. Then the moment passes, and they both know it's time to leave, bound for their homes separated by seemingly endless distances and oceans. But they stay close as they make their way through the crowd, eyes glistening. Perhaps they always will. 

Swings

Flying through the air,
the streetlamp illuminates
two laughing figures,
two friends, too old for this
childish pass-time,
yet evidently loving the moment.


My red skirt swirls around 
my knees as I fly too 
high, and catch my
breath in surprise,
my laughter doubling
at the familiar
childhood sensation of
trepidation and exhilaration.


Decisions, reality, life
are on hold and
my feet graze the
sand to slow my
momentum.


I sit, rocking slightly
like a pendulum,
craning my neck uncomfortably
to look at the unusually bright stars,
failing to see a pattern 
hidden therein.


Tonight, I am a kid again.


Tonight, reality: fuck off. 

There's a funny sort
of fuzzy feeling that
occurs, spontaneously,
halfway between a 
memory and a dream.


An odd, shimmering,
misty feeling,
impossible to name
or quantify. 


It defies gravity,
yet at the same time
it holds you to
the Earth's slippery
surface.


This is the home
of so many moments
in time, that slip
and whisper sinuously
past one another
in this vague 
dream-state.


So many fragments of
a shifting world
lurking and twisting,
half forgotten,
halfway between a memory
and a dream.

I Know

I know the dark.
I know sadness.
I know tears, pain, melancholy.
I know these things,
intimately,
like a lover whose
every contour I could
trace with my eyes closed.
I know these things intimately,
it's true, and I know
I am stronger.


Too strong, in fact, to
dwell in the darkened 
recesses of that confused inferno.
Too strong to yield,
and let it consume me,
as I once did-


But no more.


I know the dark, sadness,
tears, pain, melancholy.
I know these things.
And they are not as strong
as me. 

A Chronicle of Silence

First there are words of 
love and affection, of
undying devotion and loyalty.


These words fade, 
quickly enough I imagine,
leaving words of 
sadness and loss, of
enduring pain and loneliness.


Then there are new words,
words of hate and fire, of
consuming mistrust and vengeance. 


Then, defeated, they slink back
to where they were born. 
What words remain to be 
spoken? What else could possibly be
said?


This is the dusky, unclear world 
where words finally fade into silence.
When all the fight has gone out
like a snuffed candle,
a rapidly deflating tire, punctured
by a nail.


And really, in this twilight,
there is nothing left to say.
Nobody will understand hasty 
words anyway.


and nobody really wants 
to bother fighting, finding the words
to penetrate the icy 
silence, the eternal quiet
that endures when words,
precious, live-saving words,
cannot.