Courtyard

What I understood as he left the courtyard 

Was profound sadness

Not that a new day had begun

But that he wouldn’t see her for another two suns

Wildfire

The air smells like fire

The sun is gone 

Open windows bring in the sounds of a couple struggling 

Breaking up

While the scent of everything burning lingers on

“I just wanted to feel something”

A woman’s voice cries from the top of her lungs

A man’s voice travels behind her, in an unintelligible mumble

His clothes  filtering embers

Their fight fades into the wash of traffic

The smoke and fire drowned out their voices

Church bells crash in a ten o’clock gong

Saturday

Wind chimes sway in the breeze

A neighbor is playing the piano in the rowhome next to me

Churning out tunes that fashion themselves into the backdrop of a murder mystery 

Coffee and my soulmate keep me company 

Couples hold hands walking by smile in a sun-drenched greeting 

A lemon print dress that served comfortably as pajamas covered me

The courtyard is filled with lilac-colored day flowers forcing their final blooms

Cats strewn about plump with full bellies enjoy their casual lays

Morning pushes back from the breakfast table feeling satisfied prepares for the afternoon 

Raincoat

How is it I feel lighter in the city

Walking everywhere

The rain tells me to buy a longer coat

One below the knees like those draping the ladies breezing past me 

Exchanging afternoon gossip 

Dipping while dripping into the thrift shop along the way to ogle curiosities

Warming hands with coffee still steaming

I take a page from their book of living

Clove

She’s old now, a half a century buried in her book.

It’s been so long since she’s been out and this is a new town.

Older than her, by centuries, and tonight had been a long time coming.

Picking out a black dress, pulling on opaque matching tights, she hangs skulls from her ears and zips up black leather boots.

Her husband surprised her with a gift, one that promised to send her back in time. It comes in a box built of black, the contents require fire to ignite.

Dancing is the reason for this evening, to old songs that make her feel young again. Some of those out with her are young enough to be her children, though she never had any.

Vodka on the rocks will provide the courage needed to move freely among those swaying to a soundtrack that her life was built on.

And pulling out her black box, with her black cigarettes, she smells fall and clove, and memories waiting to be emblazoned.

Inhaling it brings vivid movies, crackling into focus, a night on a bridge over black water, laughing and feeling like everything at daybreak was possible.

She shares them with her old heads, and the circle closes completely. Each of them traveling through the smoke sucked into their lungs and exhaled into this night.

It broke her out of slumber, each half of her living in two worlds, the one she is realizing, and the one she remembers.

Vermillion

I’ve been thinking in vermilion 

It colors my hair

Builds crystals underneath my teeth 

Permeates the brick under my feet

It fires the walls around me

Keeps me from traveling 

Shut my eyes and the sun is still setting 

Cross my legs and hope the pigment isn’t a hallucination

It dyed you from a soft white transition 

Feel the change as energy turns frantic against this palette 

Promise I won’t try kissing you

Regret that we’re now colorblind

Leaves me longing for something that lives simply in black and white

Not ready to open the door to see what other hues are fighting to bleed through

We were supposed to be the color of eternity 

Fortune Cookie

What an absurd prospect

Expecting you to give me any details

Leaping to the conclusion I’m a weaver of answers that could be pulled like a slip of paper tucked inside an eat-while-you-pay-your-bill afterthought treat

Feverishly leaning into me for insights shared only as confetti from punch-holed vintage magazines

Left to sift through blank pages stacked the breadth and width of canyons

Bouncing us back and forth in their echoing

Floating above the horoscopes

Swimming around the therapy

Still, you give me nothing

So my answers sound like forged portents 

Fortune cookie offerings

Both of us know your defiant stubbornness 

was never going to offer clarity