[poem#21] Breathe

(I don't know what this is...probably nothing)

Sometimes I forget how to breathe
in this world of azure and gray, of
yes and no. The air seems too thick
somehow, my lungs within me beating
their wings, my chest on fire. It all
seems too much and yet not enough.
And I look around for you, for help,
like you did in the brighter days:
when you would come up behind me,
take my head in your hands, and exhale,
and I would feel your motion calming
those frantic wings that threatened
to fly out of my chest.
But now you are breathing another air,
an air that I have just felt briefly tickle
the back of my neck before it was gone,
and so, I watch you from afar, folding
into myself for protection,
trying to keep the air clear.

[Poem#19] Hello, Said with Delight

When the phone rang, that familiar beloved
sound, his waiting voice bouncing off
satellites and across the scraping towerous
peaks and the endless burgeoning fields,

he was there somehow, in the well of my
mind, brown always-short hair with a slight
wave in the wind, driving from Fargo to Bismarck,
window down despite
the May chills the prairie is known for,

the highways that are marked 75, but
most go faster, and the cell phone by his ear,
while the car barrels past field after field of
corn, then beans, then corn, then beans,
stretching out toward kingdom come.

Nine months since we've talked, a wedding,
a graduation, much life since then as the band
on his left hand keeps control of the wheel
and the early morning awaiting keeps my
reality in check, and yet after twenty odd

years of friendship, born out of mothers sharing
hormonal craving stories, bellies bulging against
the kitchen table, it is all fine - the time, the wife,
the completely opposite lives on the side and middle
of the country.

Our history within that world of waving stalks and
dusty dirt roads makes me confident as I see him
drive and I see me pick up the phone, ready for
catching up.

[Poem#17] Fantasy

Horses do not excite me, their taut
muscles rippling beneath their glossy
hide, long manes and tails flowing out
behind them, bit in the mouth, eyes wide
and focused on an unseen goal as they
race to the adventure up ahead.

Nor do men dressed in metal, clanking
with their protection, dents and chinks
showing where other battles have been
won, only making them stronger and
more thirsty for the next, and even as a gloved
hand reaches down to assist, their eyes
are already seeing the next adventure.

No, what I desire is a welcoming and soft shoulder
inside a sweater vest - half-off on clearance - resting
on a quiet porch with wicker furniture,
content to overlook a dusty road, out of danger
from any fire-breathing dragons or rogue
knights. Unless they be yapping pups and
a knight who always loses his race car shoes.

In that case, lead me, dear one, into the fray.

[Poem#9] Missed Opportunity

It was there in the stacks I found him
in the Purple Room of the world's largest
bookstore, in the section on Christianity.

I was searching for Lewis, and passed him,
crouching in the center of the aisle, three
times. Each time, his head rose as I passed.

I should have asked him to help me, but my
need for self-sufficiency reigned. I found Lewis only a
few feet from where he perused the Inspiration selection.

I could not stare without being noticed, so I saw his profile
in my peripheral. His skin, chocolate and smooth,
unlined. His eyes, dark; his brow furrowed;

body lean and muscular. He walked over next
to me to look at L'Engle, while I moved down slightly
to Miller. I felt electricity leap off him and snap me,

a gravitational pull that drew me near to him without
a single motion. All I had to do was lean toward him,
whisper what I was looking for; maybe he could help.

But I had nothing to say, nothing
at all, so I walked away.

[Poem#7] Watching Him Watching Her

Her voice enters before she does,
and his attention is drawn to her
as a fluttering, flying moth is pulled
to the porch light by some unknown
force. Love, perhaps.

No other words enter his ears
as his eyes go aflame, sparking and popping,
taken back in time, by portals and
wormholes. If he could break into song
and dance, he would.

Like a good boy, his eyes
stay above her neck, but I know that his mind
takes stock of her every motion:
the way she stands, the way she walks,
the curve of her hips, the swell of her breasts,
how her arms brush her thighs.

And I cannot deny him this moment,
before words are exchanged, and her smile
sets the stage for what is to come. So I stand
and I wait, while his mind is stolen and his
body is accosted by all that she is and could be -
the hope of the possibility.

[ProsePoem#1] Ioanna

(the challenge levied by my poetry group: a prose poem. Since I don't really care for/believe in prose poems, I can't tell you if I succeeded.)

There is only one picture of him among the hundreds that freeze the dipping palm trees, the rocking grasses, the swaying people. A fellow American traveler sneakily took the shot of us saying good-bye just beyond the Papua New Guinea customs desk. The flash did not go off, though, and so now, a year later, all that is visible is a foggy version of me: pink lips wide, eyes cast down demurely, and white face shining both from the New Guinea humidity and the attention. In the photo, his features are indeterminable, his dark face blending into the shadows of the background. All I can remember are his white teeth, the tribal tattoo imprinted on his arm, and that I’ve never been looked at like that in all my life. Because, for once, in the eyes of another, I was exotic. Foreign. Beautiful.

I met him over the Pacific Ocean, in that halfway space between here and there. I felt his gaze as soon as I sunk into the gray leather seats of the Air Niugini aircraft. He let me sit by the window when he heard it was my first trip to his island, and he was pleased by my nervous anticipation. With his quiet voice, just barely audible above the jet engine, he was eager to share stories of his tropical home and the tribal beauty that lay within. I said told him we were going to meet a village, and he smiled, a silent smile with bright teeth, before saying they would paint my face. I could see through his eyes the delight of this white girl in the clothes of his ancestors.

On a whim, I asked for advice, and he told me, do not be afraid. I could see he was his country, and so was asking me to not be afraid of him. I smiled and responded, I will not be afraid, and the look of his white teeth gleaming through his lips is the only picture I have of him now.