Over

We said
I'll never get over you
and we said it with delight
at who we'd found in each other.

You would not understand
but I'm beginning to.

I don't want to get over you,
because what if getting over you
is getting over love?

~March 29, 2011

Look

With you, it is your reflection
I stare at most intently;
it shows the qualities
I want to see.
But if you took my hand
for a moment turned me away
from my glassy gaze,
I'd find you not the same
because the mirror was mine,
and you in real life
are blurry around the edges.
I'm sorry I thought I could make you
who you are, who you are not.
You were already made
and all I had to do was look.

~March 6, 2011

Veil

I miss you.
I was afraid this would
happen
and I was afraid it wouldn't
(what kind of woman
wouldn't miss her man
what kind
of woman am I)
and now that the cloth
of anxiety wears thin
will I see that I still love
you?
Or was that cloth a veil between us
that you were never meant to lift

~March 6, 2011

So Smooth

Trumpet smooth in my ears
your skin smooth with color
so smooth to fall in love with you.
Falling asleep when I'm so sleepy
is smooth
until I wake up behind the wheel
behind the folded hood
behind the mistake I can't
remember making

~February 24, 2011

Playing Cinderella

I used to play Cinderella,
but you can't pretend all the time
because ballgowns and glass slippers
are a once in a while thing.
The fairy godmother appeared anyway,
and she granted my wish
and I made you believe
a pumpkin could be a carriage
carrying me to you.
And all the magic blinded me too
until I believed I couldn't live without the spell
and spent all my time fighting midnight
and when I lost one slipper,
I cut myself with the other,
to remember what I'd thought
was the story of a princess
and her charming.
By now the mice have forgotten their hooves
but their naked pink feet
are too much for me to bear.
My ragged dress is
a fairytale gone wrong
but I can't stop wearing it
and this one glass shoe is crippling me.

~February 23, 2011

Cherries

I remember when cherries were a beautiful
thing to eat and two attached were a prize,
twice the taste in the bowl of my childhood.
I remember and know I'm fortunate
to have the memory. I might never
have tasted them. I might lose that imprint
on my brain. I lost a lot more and I'm
still living.

~January 19, 2011

like that

Sad like cement
full like a sock of beans
empty like the last day of school

~January 9, 2011