Cycle Of Twelve

I

When love left from crossing the
threshold, tears were withheld
anger poured like rain instead.
warm, bubbly frothing indignation
outrage, betrayal – a heady cauldron
marking their callused course
through the bone and sinew of me

II

Somewhere where the road winds
into the Chesapeake - suddenly sand
and foam, lonesome
tufts of wild grass wave at the sea.
I would want to steep
in the water knee deep invite the breakers
to knock me down laughing silly.
Oh ! was I a dreamer. My womb was quiet with
longing. It did not feel the tickle of sand in
my toes, know of fine cracks in my happiness.
When the sun tumbled into the western sky,
we headed back home – carrying on my lap
shells, pebbles –beachcomber me, destined to
search infinity for one last rainbow colored hope.

III

They are holding hands
like we once did, laughter
fires the dream in her eyes
like they once did mine.
His speaks a foreign
tongue she does not know
to read like I once
did not know to know you.
I smell Organza over Pour Homme
as they walk past me
his eyes linger on mine for
an infinitesimal and I can see
what she cannot.
what I once could not.
In all love I see decay
I all yin I see you
in all yang - me.

IV

I could count the days by the hour
or by their brooding weight. Either
way the year has been long. My
heart has been sick and healed.
the angel touch so longed for
is still out of reach, just by a little.
For having delayed to mother,
motherhood is now justly denied

V

Picnic by the pool,
Counting circles around the live-oak,
Following the brown kitten around,
Walking up to the mailroom
Waiting for Mamma's paycheck,
Walking red-lines and yellow-lines
On the parking lot,
Favorite music, stories,
Poems about Owls and Pussycats
dancing hand in moonlight.
Tear and tantrum blemished,
unbalanced, imperfect but real.
Just know little angel, when
you vivisect the past and me
for shaping it hurriedly and crude,
that you trudge through my
life's debris not it's substance.
Know that my longing for you
was strong enough to overcome
impossible odds yet not quite
it took to rekindle my dreams.

VI

Seven perambulations by holy fire,
Five years and five hundred copulations later
oblivion devours at memory shred by shred.
Like my skin, my soul tries to forget.
Neutered by fangs of a love gone bitter
I guess at being a woman
Affirmation in clingy blouses,
strident notes of musk, patchouli
and the like –deepening shades of
carmine for lips long un-kissed.
The soul of me transcends to sexless


VII

The seals whelped at the wharf
or were those sea lions
backs slick and glimmering ?
The chowder was bleak as was
conversation. They were
four and about whole.
We were two hoping to go
on three – maybe some more.
Escaping to the scythe of sand
around Half Moon bay,
watching surfers, sea birds
and sand castle builders -
we had been invincible – felt
our love was worth more
than their million dollar mortgage.

VIII

Who would have known that clouds
could weigh a ton, drape in
gray misery until one day sun burst
through a feeling bouffant, defiant of gravity.
To those more acquainted with light than I
that would be perhaps called " happiness".

IX

In surgery they may cleave a cut
for skin to meet skin heal and turn whole.
When blood begins to flow through
veins newly joined , the body would
know to mend. Not so the figurative
heart. I wound yours, you mine ,we
come together in coital cinch or closer.
Heal we would not still. Proof is we haven’t

X

If youthful folly is excuse
the dragon fly had felt no pain.
But I, shudder to remember
the near death flutter of crisp wings
in the vise of my grubby little fingers -
and the grateful heave of life when
at last I let go. In Karma’s tally,
I had made a dark notch.
Awaiting Moksha, I feel now
the tightening clamp of circumstance.

XI

Every evening sadness descends on me

like mist on the hills - slow, soft

and enveloping. It caresses me.

I drive home in fading daylight aware

of the deep void of words
strained by unexpressed longing.

I pause between life and emptiness,
to remember the promise of you. I hurt.

I wish so much to forget, to move on

like they all say I should, like I refuse
to believe I must, like I know I will.

XII

Your silence is a lake in

first frost - icy and immovable.

Last year, driving

through the country

past sentinel maple and oak

catching their colors
the very last minute,
just as we had found each other
before all hope had faded.
You had been a river in spate -

maybe only in my imagination,

in my longing for one true love.

A week later the colors of fall
were gone and so were you.
A trellis of brown twigs
against the winter sky remained.

I sense being in your heart a
murmured undercurrent,
pulsating with life that is
fast giving away.

By when spring returns you

will no longer hear. Another
heart has learnt to love mine.