I can still feel heat/
like yesterday. Your moistness/
wraps me. (Not really).

You spend hours in great/
conversation. Then . . . nothing./
Is it a food ploy?

She said she’d cried:/
“Let it rip”./
But there was a flip/
side./
Members only got/
to go on her ride.

Somewhere someone will dance with me.
When my face she spies and sees
rhubarb and lavender in my hand
she’ll think I’m grand.

She’ll laugh and watch out her balcony
as I leave, just to see
if I a backwards glance will give
and sing “On the street where you live”.

She’ll keep, pressed, a daffodil
I once, unbidden, laid on her windowsill.
When I drive a long distance,
she’ll anticipate with no resistance.

Somewhere, that someone waits for me…
and I learned, long ago, she is not thee.

It’s funny how my/
unrequited love’s sorrow/
quick-changed, thanks to you.

I have an issue with the first passage of the book Little Bee, and I shared my thoughts about it during an IMing session:
It reads:
“Most days I wish I was a British pound coin instead of an African girl. Everyone would be pleased to see me coming.
Maybe I would visit with you for the weekend and then suddenly, because i am fickle like that, I would visit with the man from the corner shop instead – but you would not be sad because you would be eating a cinnamon bun, or drinking a cold Coca-Cola from the can, and you would never think of me again.
We would be happy, like lovers who met on holiday and forgot each other’s name.”

The person who shared this piece with me thought it was amazing. I thought it was sad, and expressed my feelings:

“I can’t imagine meeting, nor being, a lover who meets on holiday, and then who would forget his love’s name, who could be happy.
Should I meet a love on holiday, or any other day — perhaps a day like today? — I would hope her name would be engraved in my heart.
Like the clear stone you hold up to the sunset. I ‘believe’ in finding a love like that.

A love for whom you sit around, dirty in your nighttime dust, because you don’t want to leave.

You can wait to start the party because, without that person, there is no party.

Did the sun rise on the days before you met?
You don’t remember.

Will the sun set this evening?
You’re not quite certain, but if it does, it’s only because it will allow you to slip into sweet, lasting dreams of your love.
And so it goes. The sun rises on you and your love.
The sun sets, so other moments together can begin.

And you look at your hands on the keyboard and wonder where this all came from, on what promised to be an ordinary, uneventful day.

And you raise your eyes above your hands, to your heart, and feel the hope…
and know.”

You asked what caught my eye.
It was your photo. Hey, I’m a guy!
What held me
like a trembling
butterfly
was what I read and see
as I look past
your visual poetry.

Being by the water.
Your love of your son and daughter.
Gardening.
Belly laughing.

Exploring the wonders of the world.
Comfortable silence.
The value of words.
Taking a chance.

Humility.
Dignity.
Simple conversatiion.
Affection without reservation.

Should I go on?
Or may I be done?

For the rest of you to adore
is what I’d like
to invite
us both to explore.

You’ve certainly
set my creativity
on fire!
Is that good? This creative desire?

Absolutely!
To be amused
by a muse
should never be confused
with being lazy
nor abused.

It’s the highest
and best
creative use
to get my creative juice
going
and flowing.

You know IMing/
puts a lot of pressure on me,/
because I now have to be/
creatively/
over the top/
at the drop/
of a hat,/
and I can’t always do that./

(Who am I fooling?/
Of course I can! /
I can set innnards drooling/
with a few key strokes of my hand!)

What did you expect?/
You told me it was too much./
So I left. Why stay?