It’s that time of year again. Turkey and football and mashed potatoes and Black Friday and pumpkins and fall weather and cornucopias and… thanks? Yeah, sure. It’s good practice, I suppose. Why not. Let’s see—you go first.
What am I thankful for? Like green beans and cranberry sauce, the canned answer works here: family, friends, freedom, and fudge. The four F’s.
No! Love. That’s a good one. Take a journey of love below, because, you know, I’m thankful for it. And you should be too.
The Mime's Box
One day, I smiled for your camera,
and you captured me.
Here I am, glossed on a sheet
in a static 4x2 world,
only wishing
you could find me
without losing
any time.
Last hour, I cradled our shadow
and neglected the light
till they died. You are there,
in the heat of a snowball stand,
thinking
it could heal me
without changing
how it feels.
Now I shudder when the sun burns
red on your skin.
We are not here, in the crater
of a shadow, but I am
still hoping
you can hug me
without touching
where it hurts.
All My Silly Protons
If our love was concrete, it would be air,
too scattered to gather in a box
and call my own.
I would shoot its protons through a pair of slits
and read the waves it leaves. I am tempted
to measure them, see if they love me back,
make them choose.
I am done with probability.
If you never see me, will my particles run away,
perhaps join the circus, form the painted smile
on a melancholy clown?
Maybe some will find a bulb buried in the loam,
wondering when the frost will die
so it can bloom.
Others will fling across the sky, join the dark matter
between the stars, maybe slide around a black hole
like a penny in a funnel. I suspect
some have left already.
I am glass to you.
Then you smile, and they all rush back,
getting stuck at the back of my throat.
To Live for the Moment
A little long in the claw,
but days are measured in hours, not minutes.
A heartbeat may be a second,
it may be quicker
when we're lying down, nose to nose.
What if all our lives we never mentioned this
to anyone else? How the grasses cowered
and the hot springs spread between our thighs
as the days fell off like familiar clothes, the years
playing in your eyes. I pull the edge of my mouth down
to retrain the grimace I know is coming;
later, when the years too have fallen away
and lay disgusting in the runoff.
What can I say? I’m a hopeless romantic. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
