your body and its reflection
resemble a bracket,
emphatically holding the day–
every call from screeching gulls,
each breeze rippling marshy waters,
all the tiny gnats hovering above the flat surface,
and every stray desire dispelled by me,
and perhaps by you, on that waning afternoon
on the way home, i counted the towers
and watched the skies shift from pink and peach
to bright gold and crimson before settling on the deepest, darkest blue–
melting into the midnight, the towers disappeared
dreams linger–
sitting silently on velvety petals
shimmering and shifting–
before drifting deftly away,
and landing upon the next tender bud
you captivate with your languid longing
big blue marble
a stack of used books
pencil set
chocolate raspberry coffee
dried long stalks of delicate burgundy flowers
and light green eucalyptus
large and small notebooks
spices and herbs with these titles on the bottles:
tuscan sunset, sunny paris and turkish seasoning
the closing of the day
i thought you were alone,
but there were two other geese
roaming the field,
and when we walked by
you called out loudly
to them?
to me?
we were all at attention,
your intention was clear–
i walked by gently,
loving you from a distance
delicate pink petals
pinch my heart–
the memories come flooding,
tumbling,
racing
into the space that is now,
that was then,
that was when
we were young
it wasn’t the glass ceiling
that was so infinitely appealing,
or the greens or the pinks
or the deep porcelain sinks–
it was the shabby
and the rough
and the marks and the scuffs
and the weeds and small seeds
and the rambling reeds–
it was the crumbling paint
and the rust and the faint
outline and shadow of the earth laying fallow
that i liked and understood
The Private Lives of the Impressionists by Sue Roe
Fine Little Day by Elisabeth Dunker
Artists’ Houses by Gerard Georges Lemaire
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
Enchanted Forest by Johanna Basford
spanishwoods 