A Poem to You on Your Birthday

They say that life is a journey,
A path cleared with dreams and ambitions
And recollected with memories and scars.

They say that everyone’s course is unique,
The most personal and lonely of treks into the unknown,
But we all are marked with the intersections
Where our voyages cross.

They say we are our experiences.
We embody the knowledge we have learned.
We take on some shape of the people we have loved.
We hold in the front of our minds,
The spot where they are the most easily reachable,
The things we have seen that we treasure.

Of all that I‘ve seen:
Flowering desert mountain cacti,
Stars falling across the Mississippi,
Or the sun setting smooth and quiet over the Gulf—
It is you, standing in the early evening light
Of late autumn, that I cherish the most.

Paper

There are moments when I am flimsy
As a piece of paper—
Ghost white, disregarded, and smeared with the ink
Of past mistakes.
In these instances, I blow crazy in the breeze
And dance unfettered of bone and heart and muscle,
Until I land in a pothole, filled with yesterday’s rain,
And soak in it like a grimy baptismal.
Then the moment is over,
And days come like they always do:
Wake, shower, check the weather and fill the day
With tiny crises to make the enormity of the normality bearable.
But stuck between all the humdrum,
Squeezed in with all the bullshit and broken glass,
There is always the chance I will see you,
And remember the time, standing in the front yard,
You looked up and asked,
“So, are you going to kiss me now?”
Then you leave and once again
I turn into a piece of paper.

Thinking of You

There have been days, when all throughout my duties,
I do nothing but think of you.

It happens while I’m driving or brushing my teeth,
Or when I notice how the sun catches a falling leaf
And it makes the yellow and burnt orange flash like a siren of autumn.

On days like these, I wish I could paint.
I would place you on a canvas next to the
Notre Dame de Paris at midnight, with me
In your arms and the ghosts of Josephine and Napoleon
Dancing in love’s reunion,

But I cannot paint.
I cannot run 6 miles like you.
I cannot fly a jet, bench press twice my bodyweight, or
Take away your reservations about men.

I can only offer you a poem and promise:
That for all my shortcomings,
In everything that drives you away,
I promise to take yours with the patience of Job,
And have the jealousy of God—
Because like Him, I know that it would do you no good
To go looking for love in another,
Because ours would swallow an ocean before we let you drown.

They are only words, I know,
But often they are all I have on days like this,
When I can do nothing but think of you.

I Wouldn't Trade a Tree

At the corner of the yard,
Moss hangs off the skeleton of an oak tree
Like the long stringy hair of an elderly woman.
It doesn’t afford a shade in the summer,
And the winds of spring
And the snows of winter
Ravage limbs from its hollow body.
I know I should cut it down.
I curse its existence the morning after a storm
As I pick up its pieces off the lawn—
A betrayal of beauty and a crime of circumstance
Because I remember that tree in its glory,
When two young squirrels rested in its branches.

Our Doppelgangers

It looks like we won’t be going to Georgia
For my birthday, and I understand why.
Because you are Edna,
Lighting your candle at both ends,
Taking life by the balls (or twat),
Pulling it towards you and giving it
The greatest thrill its ever known,
For just a moment.
And I will be Edmund,
Always searching for a poet
And a perfect set of legs,
But never again finding you.
It is this fate which is inevitable,
Just as is knowing you is to fall in love with you.
All I ask of you is this:
Please be careful around the stairs.

Winn-Dixie

I couldn’t help myself--
Standing in the grocery
Behind a balloon of a man,
I rasped a heavy sigh at his
Lethargic attempt to unload his cart.
Then, as he slowly lifted his eyes toward me,
With his jowls swaying like limp flags,
He told me to go fuck off,
And in that moment I thought of you.
I shall be home in fifteen minutes,
And after I put the ice cream in the freezer,
I’d like you to help me make one man’s wish
Come true.

If I Were Brave

If I were brave, I’d tell you that
You terrify me.
I would stand with a strong chest
And a steady voice, and
Explain that within your 5’4”
Lives a being that knocks me breathless,
But every time I gather enough courage,
You smile wide, look me in the eye,
And I lose myself all over again.

When You're Eighty

I think you’ll be beautiful when you’re 80:

When you’ve been transfigured by decades of
Breathing the aroma of love and pain and the
Small melodramas of life,

When your hair has been washed white
And your delicate hands curl, exhausted from
Seizing the moment,

When your grey eyes deepen,
When your voice softens,
When your heart and brain reconcile,

And when I stoop with reverence
To place a warm kiss upon your wrinkled brow.

You are lovely now,
But I think you’ll be beautiful when you’re 80.

Envy

Laying across a plump scarlet couch,
I watched auburn hair move pendulum-like
Over a milky shoulder.
The walls rolled like waves,
Crashing and bending with
Each snap of her hips.
The room, lit by a television,
Danced and flickered a dull
Pulsing blue.
I traced the outline of her
Tattoo with an outstretched finger,
Wishing I could be that
Permanent.

Doubting Thomas Confesses to a Lover

She told me
she has
serious
doubts
About her
ability
to love.
I told her
I felt the
same way
whenI read
Scripture.

Your Last Bottle of Perfume

In the side drawer of your desk
Under a silk handkerchief,
I found your last bottle of perfume.

A sliver of sunlight though the blinds
Radiated off the gentle curve of the bottle,
And it looked like a diamond earring.

I held the bottle in my open palms
As if it were a child
And the last spray within was you,
Sleeping tenderly in the hammock
At the edge of the garden
The day before your trip home.

I held the nozzle to my nose
And felt your skinny fingers
Squeeze my shoulders
And did not relent to the desire
To join you.