Dancer, Like A Feather

He floats like a feather on air.
She can see him moving --
But she can't see how he dare
Twist and spin like a record grooving.

She cups her fingers free and loose
Around her chin and mouth
And imagines a Canada goose
Returning from further South,

Soaring over her head,
Her hair and ears and brain.
Or else she imagines instead
That her love can make it rain.

But now her attention's arrested;
He has taken custody.
They have yet to be tested,
But they know that nothing is free.

The stop button has turned back
The advance of the music's flow;
The heart began to crack
Inside the stereo

But somehow it goes freestyle,
And somewhere the sound's still playing:
In the off-key hum from behind her smile,
In the tender things he's saying.

Tastes Like Color

Sailing down the avenue

With boats strapped to our feet

Skate around the bend

Where the road doesn't end,

Where two other crosspaths meet.

When I kiss your eyelids

They taste like the brown they hide

And when I kiss your cheeks they taste

Of all the clumsy and thoughtless haste

Of the words that you let slide.

It doesn't bother me much

That you might have lost your touch

And lost your mind as well.

It's because I'm under your spell.

But I'm also in your clutch.

I licked blue raspberry Popsicle

Until it wasn't cold.

Red-like-tomatoes lipstick

Made you look like an idiot.

Made retro not look old.

The broken things we call our past

They're just calendars on the floor.

The new one's on the door.

And if we mess up that one too,

We can always reach for more.

Pure And Cold White

When snow is thick on the very waves

And the waves rise up like screaming witches

And the dead lie gray and cool in their graves

And the tailor ends his line of stitches;

When the snow covers over the windows

And drifts higher than the gabled roof,

And I can no longer watch where it bellows

Against the road, where you walked, aloof;

Then, only then, will I finally sleep

In a sleep like death, wherein I won’t dream.

So from now until Winter this watch I’ll keep

And sew another long wedding gown seam.

Trooped ranks of daisies, pure and cold white,

Tempt my mind to believe in the frost.

When a motherly breeze stirs them with light,

Pretty fingers so warm, my hope spark is lost

And its fire dies down to an ash-colored coal

And I prick my finger just to remind my blood

That my heart is still beating, and once it was full

And in Winter pure blankets of snow hide the mud.

And the diamond-clad ground any darkness will pierce.

Someday the seasons will swing ‘round their head

And smile again, with that smile so fierce,

On the one who returns, even back from the dead.

Ingenue

Sometimes she tiptoes and dances

Lightly down the garden path at dawn.

And blows kisses to birds as she glances

Upward into the sweetly brightening sky

That unfolds like peach silk curtains

For the soft-hearted sun to waken by.

Sometimes she smiles imperceptibly

At the corners of her rose-colored lips

When white rose petals detach ceremonially

And in faith surrender to gravity's call.

Sometimes she hovers over ivory keys

Like a gypsy pensive before her crystal ball.

And the future is music, the kind that frees

The soul from the body like the leaves that fall.

Sometimes monsters wear masks.

A heart divided can only beat against itself.