It's like a river

how it did not start and did not end

how I dammed it at the top,

at its beginning

how I hung curtains in all the windows nearby

so occupants of the riverside houses could look out and see how

we flowed

It's like a river when you say, "I love you,"

"I love you too."

It's like an ocean we poured into

too soon

too fast.

More, I wanted

More, I gave

You never know when , but a river does end

and then it starts

again.

Rivers have no intelligence beyond their very nature: to be rivers

but I have some smarts now-smarty pants-

yeah, I'm a smarty pants now.


I bought a cage to put around the river.

You laughed, like I was joking, like it was an on purpose paradox.

I put the cage down and the river went right on down the hill as if nothing has happened

...only a goldfish got caught

and the river was not the same

with a caged goldfish in the middle.

It knew.

It knew there was something to move around.

The river moved like a parabola around the small cage-

but only because of the goldfish.

I looked into your eyes and explained how I caegd myself in

too fast

now I have saved up a river in my closet.

For eight months I have not opened my closet door.

It is bolted strong. The sign on the door says RIVER

Guests do not inquire.

Some guests never even return.

There is a world in that closet, not just a river.

That was my biggest mistake:

calling it simple too soon.


You played along, so it's your fault too-

and you left me to dam it

by myself.

I hardly criticized you for this. I gathered styrofoam blocks, I hoarded earthen objects- nuts, seeds, ANYTHING-and made a dam so large the neighbors mistook it for a wall.

Their curtains closed.

I was left to some privacy.


THe sun came out one day and I lay by the bank. Finally things were dammed up. Finally I fixed what had gotten too fast, too wild, too much-finally I was warn and safe.

And like a sudden racoon you lept from between two houses. You missed my shoulder and landed behind me.

I took off my shirt then to soak the sun and like a trapeze you were up on a tree branch in moments.

I hadn't taken my shirt off to show you what was underneath. You were a racoon, for real, you would not have cared to see my lovely female.

I took my shirt off because I lost my fear of racoons all this time, out by the river damming.

There you were up in the tree, black, smelly and small as can be.

Why did I do what I did you ask me?

To reverse the roles, and so I could be.

All I can say now is I wish I had never

let go of the water, unlocked the door, pulled back the lever.

But there is another chance to be had, you whisper to me.

All this time, you've gone tree to tree.

But trees are not water,

what you need is with me-

it's in my closet and is ready to flow free.

This time slower, parrots in the trees.







It's one of those special times right before something big happens.

One of those longing times

Longing to be up there with the moon

to say goodbye and hello

to rehearse the way we did before we arrived

you wearing red,

me wearing blue,

you in a truck, me in a canoe.


Your eyes

and then the moon


if I could be one with any one transporter of light


then the lightbulbs you bring in the back of your truck

the ones we do not discuss,

or have yet to discuss,

the ones that sing and play and tell time.


I knew something right from the start about us.

I knew: we were right, you made me feel I was not alone.

I knew this was it.

You had enough of the criteria-not that you were perfect,

or even close,

but that you matched up enough- I pretended you were part of a phonics workbook and listed your qualities

Then I connected them with lines to the ones I had written a week earlier

...so I did not know you were my husband.


There is a lot in a pile of leaves,

a lot of mystery,

a lot of stuff:

colors, shadows, blackness, layers, wet, dry, brown, orange, even yellow, and red, even life, and even more,

silver things, shapes we cannot see.


I told you too much right away, that is how it started.

We sat in a parking lto all day and my white rice from lunch got cold.

I ate the rest of my chicken with brocolli. I offered you water and the remaining rice.

You declined both.

Another time we lay on grass waiting- you wanted to roll down the hill,

I said, Maybe another time.

I wanted to get food.

You said, In a bit.

So we looked at the sky and dreamed.





The Granola Bar

It's one of those special evenings,

tender while preserving triumph

I forgot about Halloween- last year you were there to remind me, but no I am not nostalgic

for the pearls, the red rubies, the red lip[s, the long dresses-none of it.

Not the high heels, emerald slippers, telephone calls at midnight

not the blue skies,

green foam

morning beach swimswhere I dive in before you

rock collecting

fish eating

restaurant hopping

lack of planning-

I am not missing any of that time

except you

yeah you-

You wear bowties now, made of silk.

There's one thing, yeah one thing I miss.

One time we passed a railroad station in New York State or Connecticut, one of the two.

I took a hard granola bar from the basket and left change in the bowl-

I had never seen granola bars at a station on the honors system before.

Minutes later I felt I was about to faint.

You told me to eat the granola bar

so I ate it even though it was junk.

That one time that I ate that granola bar-of all the times we had together-all the sex, all the beach walks, all the car rides, all the late night talks-

it is the only thing I miss.

I would relive the eating of that Natures Way hard Oats and HOney-

but nothing

no nothing

else.