If you’re trekking alone in the dark
The train station within sight
Hope of home in your heart
Schedule unknown but hoping you won’t be late
Those obstacles in the meantime?
The throngs of strangers
The loved One who neither noticed you’re gone, nor cares whether you’ll ever return
A nearly dead battery and bank balance
Yesterday tethered around your ankles
Take comfort, you are seen
Someday, in 20/20 hindsight, find
A candle shone in some window
That beautiful soul, burned for you
The train leaves sharp at 11:11pm
You are loved far greater than you think
Now run, freely
And step lively


A freeing, I imagine, is the gift we’d gift eachother
Leave the striving and othering to striving others grasping for some brass ring
Leave the grasping to the ocean waves that want more of the shore
A new ocean and eachother’s, I know…gold rings…free
Surely the circle
Summoning the soul back home
Is where we will heal
My years-long freedive
Into this clear-delusion
I need to divulge
For the record
And all the ’70’s vinyl we thrifted for those Saturdays as downtowners
For the turntable we excitedly found
And the way we felt our world spin and spin with it over and over again
For the record
Go on record
To say
You neither had a beach in mind
Nor the white dress for me you described
No thought for a home for us, at all
None lyrical love notes did you ever produce
We were just spinning
As broken records do
Over and over
Until you were over us

Living must be
A constant cleaning of the crimes in the outermost corners of outbuildings on the back forty of whatever land we’re fortunate to shepherd
A diligent organizing of each and every backshelf, closet, drawer, and centerpiece of these blessed bodies of truth we call Home Sweet Home
An earnest sweeping of matter that ultimately, doesn’t matter, but made its way to the front stoop and attempted to exert squatter’s rights
An eventual Welcome sign placed humbly, breathlessly, on each door we’re otherwise prone to leave sealed up tight, that we would embrace again
Creation must be
I am amazing
In hunter green sheath
I’d planned last summer
For New Year’s Eve
Silk against skin
Cut to the thigh
Your demure firework
Heels on high
Champagne celebration
It was to have been
We’d teach eachother
We’d dance again
Inky ring-fingers
Hilltop house near a glen
Belonging to each other
Forever by then
What’s been in our window’s way, I don’t know
How many promising nights did we wait
Sun gracing each season’s skies through the years
That’s what they claimed all those arduous days
But our eyes didn’t see
What our skin didn’t feel
Now comes the end, so the calendar sings
Belt it out here, with me
Not a song that tells you you’ve got to go home
Instead check the window sign
You’re not alone
With prophetic vision
All the women
In the family
Mothers and daughters
Cousins and nieces
With pets present
Met in unison
Tethered their souls
Gathered their wisdom
Shared bad meals
Cried then laughed
Rolled up sleeves
Studied the data
Examined their hearts
Consulted with God
Exhaled a “Yes”
Cleaned the mess
Moved some mountains
Saved the world
Then slept soundly
We say we trust us
So bring donuts tomorrow
Sprinkles and creme-filled
