How Dare You Quote Whitman

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Sonny, (I can call you that because I’ve grey and am much older than you)

You don’t look like a man who’dve (proper grammar? I surely don’t care)

Said what you said (but you said it, and it stole my heart)

In Chapter 25 (chapter twenty-five., to be precise)

Or even a man who’dve been able to “focus” this long (though you lay claim to seeing its virtue, so I’ll believe you)

Given the amount of time (I’ve spent more than my fair share of it and secretly believe it’s ubiquitous)

And number of exhalations I know (I know) it took away

From your habitual daydreaming (I’ve a penchant for it, too)

I could (sadly, I will) continue sharing unrequited love-jabs here

But it’s late and the (glorious, but damned) mosquitoes have made their entrance

So I laugh (always — most often at myself), and tuck your bookmark (thanks) in my bra strap (ha) instead of your book (your book, bravo) and go inside for the night (and, how dare you quote Whitman?!)

Goodnight (goodnight)

I’m Sorry, July

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Purple ribbons
As arms I wrapped ’round lavender

I don’t know what they held hope for

Seems like they should’ve been longer
Streaming, like celebration in the July sun

As it stands, they dangle
Stunted
Too short

Apologizing, that I tied Purple ribbons
’round a fragrant bundle
Bound beauty makes me see
What you couldn’t utter

I needed you too much
I wasted your year and one half

In Our Fifties

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Our chartreuse-colored love

The ugly chair now, that we don’t wish to sit in or admit brought comfort, respite

Nor will we throw it away

We mourn it in the kitchen like a death
Seemingly forever, while surrounded with casseroles of comfort food brought to us by well-meaning “friends”

We watch it as an epic film of someone else’s life
Sitting in the dark, screaming at the screen, warning of their err, fall from grace, then trauma

We escape it with our wanderlust-filled travels near and far
Photographing nature, plus wild wildlife who in-turn, chase us as we sleep, pseudo-nightmares that wake us at 3am

We do this
You, there, and me, here

Silk and brocade-covered hardwood frames we were and we are
Camaraderie and adventure that was to have brought us peace
Closure to the aching

What color was it initially, before the fade, we ask ourselves over and over

What we know for certain — it was an heirloom love

Before the spit up and sweaty workaday clothes soiled it
Before the pained animals in us tore it to shreds
Before our childhood loneliness, unresolved, relegated us to our corners in our fifties — upper lips bloodied, both of us

Walking attachment disorders, detached by default, from each other
All in one, single day

Eventually, we go to the curb with this shredded chartreuse thing

Pack up and move far away

Looking from the rear-view mirror at what was, we draw others’ ire as we drive too-slow down that road

It is always dusty Summer in our hearts’ mind’s eye