Relationship with a Capital R

The ironic thing about the Relationship (with a capital R) is that it is the place where you are most likely to run up against your own limitations. No fair! Our culture sells romantic love as a kind of panacea for the aloneness that is inherent to the human condition. Maybe it is partially that, but its essential nature less straightforward.

It is in relationship that we see the exact ways that we are alone. This first poem is about the disillusionment that happens when you realize love - as you have known it so far - might not be enough.

Your Heart

When you give your

heart

You pretend it beats

vibrant and full of blood- You say

take this, it will be a worthy companion

to you. Then little by little the hollowness

and the cracks are exposed

The way the thing skips a beat.

You patch it up Move along, nothing

to see here.

Then one day

                                   

broken crumpled moth wings

tarpaper

daub - stick, mud tape

The crowds gather stand around and gawk at the thing

wondering if it will ever fulfill its former promise.

Sometimes you wish for something less - no matter how flawed it might be. You want to know that you are separate, even from those you love. 

In My Daylight

In the thick dark

of the front seat

of his dented Volvo

parked on a dry

nighttime riverbed

wrapped in Leonard Cohen’s voice

beside a man

I’ll never know

well. Talking

the kids

from the Elwha tribe

used to pull pranks

on that bridge. They would

make dummies that looked

real and  throw them

into the middle

of the narrow bridge

under front wheels, screeching

to a halt and almost

through that guardrail

one time.

I will never read

him in the dark. It will

be over after

our first fight. In the dark

of the places he grew

up, I am not required,

to fill any holes.





Dreams and waking blend together to make reality. Sometimes, you just want to dive in, take an immoderate helping, revel in it, because after all this is where we learn to be ourselves.

Dim Sum Dream

Dim sum has just been delivered

to the table. Round, fleshy steamed buns. Bright green

broccoli under dented tin lids. Pot Stickers folded

with origami precision.

Woken first by the cats

he is – stroking my hair three times

pretty, pretty, pretty. He pulls me close.

I move in, breathe and clasp his thigh.

Clacking wheels of the stainless

steel cart make endless rounds.

Steam seeps round the edges

trailing.

There is no price I can put on

closeness.

no way to measure moist

warmth.

Even as I grow uncomfortable I will not

move

away.

I will stay with my spine twisted to rest squarely

against his chest.

He has fallen

back to sleep. I am still

listening to his breathing.

slow it comes

rapid-fire then stops.

One, two, three. I count the seconds,

holding my own breath until he

breathes again.