early valentine for my father

especially radiant today,
on this first afternoon
of springtime sun,
are the splendors of you,
echoing--triumphant!--across
the road map
of your face.

they are
a celebration, perhaps,
of the time you have seen,
long shadows and
golden mornings both,

or a recollection of
the things you have
given
to the place from
whence you
sprang.

wish you were here

so this is what life is now,

an endless array of phone calls
and email messages,
the occasional video chat,
a facebook comment
underneath a photo of you
in a silly hat

and the missing
of our arms entwined,
the unadulterated sound
of your laughter,
your voice,
unmarred by distance,
and the
leaping of my heart
at the pleasure of your nearness

mountain prayer

thank you for these mountains,
for this trial.
thank you for exhaustion,
and the dusty swirling heat,
and this thirst,
and this pain in my leg that i cannot shake away.
be with me now,
in this miracle valley of your creation,
be with me on this hillside
that makes my heart stop at its beauty
as i ache for you,
be with me for i cannot do this alone.

in this lesson in distance
i am done marking the space between us,
for you are in these blades of grass,
and in this pain,
and in my heart's gratitude,
and i am calling you down from your mountain
to help bring me home.

bravery

the bravest thing
i have ever done
was to sit down
and look you in the eye
and tell you that
i'm sorry, but
i love you.

seven random tips for happiness (in no particular order)

I.
an apple a day keeps the doctor away,
but if you don't have an apple
really ripe oranges will do the trick.

II.
never go to bed angry,
it makes your hair look funny when you wake up
and you will definitely have a bitter taste
in your mouth.
instead, take deep breaths, and try very hard
to accept that we are not always perfect.

III.
reminder!
thanksgiving can be celebrated
all 365 days of the year,
and you don't even have to
roast a turkey!

IV.
two words: hot chocolate.

V.
pay attention to pop culture:
you won't get into grad school
at harvard that way
but you will win
every game of charades.

VI.
speak another language,
even if you have to make it up
and don't worry so much about
your fluency:
remember, everyone speaks the
international language of gesture.

VII.
love.
as often,
as boldly,
and as recklessly as possible.

fashion forward

i have always been
fairly certain
that i was born in the wrong decade,
at least for certain things.

its not that i am unappreciative
of a button down plaid shirt
and a pair of black skinny jeans
or the soft woolen caps
worn even in the dead heat of august,
and i am certainly a fan of the
brightly colored sweatshirts, sneakers, scarves,

but what i wouldn't give
for a cravat and a cream colored vest
or a pair of beautifully tailored pants
and well made leather boots,
displayed beneath a fitted waistcoat
and a carefully chosen top hat.

move like wildfire

its almost the end of the month
and there is so much
i haven't said:

like that these days move
like wildfire
and that your voice
on the other end of the phone
no longer makes me
shiver with sadness.

mostly i regret
that i did not write them down,
those unsaid things
that i
discovered at 2:03pm
on a winter afternoon lit
with silver.

forgive/forget

love,
lets us not
forget one another
when our days
grow shorter
and our hours together
ebb
let us instead
remind one another
of the taste of
crisp apples
and the smell of sticky summer skin
and forgive each other
what we can

leftovers

cleaning out my desk
long past my bedtime
i discover
fifteen city maps

marked up,
with circled addresses,
highlighted streets
and creased corners,
the impossibly named streets
dash impatiently
off the edges,
disregarding my
inability to pronounce
their strange combination
of letters and accents

mingled amongst them,
the detritus of memories:

ticket stubs,
museum admissions,
a sugar packet,
the label of a spanish painkiller
obtained through a grilled doorway
at an ungodly hour of morning,
a railpass,
a credencial:
the paper trail
of three weeks of beauty
and one foot before the other,
several photos,
a handwritten email address
who is isabel678@moroc.es?,
train times scratched onto the back
of a receipt
for two cola caos,
and lists of groceries,
sayings,
directions.

how do you dispose of
the leftovers
of adventure?
how do you throw away
a piece of paper
that holds a history
you are terrified of forgetting?

okay.

they are making an
omelette
at eight am
on a thursday morning.

the cutting of the peppers,
the thin slices of onion,
the crush of the garlic beneath
his knife,
the texture of the cheese
crumbling beneath his
still dull fingertips,
the crisp crack of the egg
against the side of the bowl--

each sensation greets him
like an old familiar friend.

as he scoops the
ingredients up to toss
them in the pan,
he steadies himself on the
edge of the counter with his
good hand

and breaths in slowly,
fighting his mind
for balance.

okay?
she asks,
her patient hands guiding,
steadying,
his bulky frame.

okay,
he says.
okay.

taste

even the peaches
taste like you in summertime

ripe with the heat of august
with their sticky sweet flesh,
succulent and trembling pale
beneath the tips of skimming fingers
that linger over their taught orange-pink skin.

sitting in their bright blue bowl
on the countertop
beside the violent reds, purples, and yellows
erupting in their vase,
they blush with reservation,
afraid they too will fall.

memory, in four parts

I.
here is what i remember:

it is raining,
and we are running down the path
between our houses.
as we splash along,
reckless feet beneath us,
our sneakers
squelch and lurch along.

you are faster than me
--longer legs, stronger muscles--
but as we reach the space between
where you live
and where i live
you stop and duck beneath
the porch light of my door and
when i reach you, finally,
you are laughing,
head thrown back, knees bent.

our shirts stick to our skin,
and now i am laughing too.
the rain is beating hard against the tin roof,
the palest echo of my heart against
its ribcage, as you
pull your arms around me
and trace the shape of my face with your palm.

II.
here is what i discover:

that there,
beneath the porch light
in a fall downpour,

you taste of rain.

III.
here is the truth:

there is no storm.
there is no porch light, no running,
no laughter,
no moment where our faces were so close
i could no longer see
your white breath mingling with mine.
there is no memory.

IV.
here is what i know now:

there is you, and the space between us

and sometimes
that is enough.

romantic comedy

it is winter.
outside, it is snowing
big, wet, lazy snowflakes,
and i have just stoked the wood stove
and curled up beneath
my mother's yoga blanket.

i am watching one of those old
and familiar romantic comedies
of the late nineties or early aughts,
in which,
with disarming smiles and charm and wit,
meg ryan and tom hanks banter and bicker
and write love letters to strangers.

i miss those days,
when in naive wonder i really believed
that love would be like the movies
and romance would be filled with
clever quips and comedy
and accompanied by a soundtrack
of simple piano or quirky indie hits.
despite the comedic timing of
miscommunications and missed connections,
and the requisite challenge that must be overcome,
love would always end with a kiss in central park
or the meeting of hands
on the roof of the empire state building.

bones of the day

i am retreating
into the bones of the day

the skeletal remains of the hours passed
display themselves without disguise
as sleep prepares to
feast on the muscles of morning
and fat of the afternoon

as night spends its hours
building for us a new day
to slowly strip away