publishing work 7/4/12

I tend to chide, a bookworm
whose erstwhile paradigm of love
is ever conditionally tensed.
If we were to, we would. Should we this, we that.
But did I stutter when I said I love you best?
Did the heart in your beat skip a chest?
Oh, dear.
If I were to attain perfection, I would ascend
into clouds of hubris so intense and vile
they choke out air.
And should I gather up the courage to take your hand as myself, hiding nothing, I would be
only myself.

Truth embodies the conditional endophytically, then vaporizes fear with its infrared beam.
The vestigial mist mildews the pages of our love, adding spots
so we remember which section was open that day
when we review for future generations where adventures began and plots thickened.

an exercise in iambic pentameter: mistaken identity 10/21/11

On a walk with Zoe in the fall

casting toward the river and the Plant,

She -- pulling, snuffling, loping, searching, gay --

I, strung out on the twilight of the day.

Round the bend, a woman held a leash;

looking west, her coat an engine-re.

Too eager for the winter chill, I felt,

with glorious, golden autumn dusk ahead.

Distracted for a moment by the dog,

I suddenly looked up again to find

the woman gone, and standing in her place

a fire hydrant on a piping base.

I laughed that I could make such a mistake!

But truly, the resemblance in the dusk

uncanny, and I swear I saw her face

expectant to the west, as for a dog.

     In the first moment I lost you

     A jarring recognition, seeing true

     The presence I thought waited there and breathed

     Was just a hole, covering a need.