I dance on this hard surface,
And the equal and opposite
Dances back on me.

I absorbed some different shade,
And what reflects to you
I cannot see.

But I taste distinctive hope,
The sweet salt-water pucker
Of forgiven memory.

And when I am alone
With all my years,
I dance free.

I can try to restrain, to retreat,
From this familiar roam,
But not all ruts are carved defeat.
Maybe all roads do lead home
If you travel long enough.

A preacher puts pressure
On all the weakest seams,
But not all stressors
Conspire to redeem,
And I miss the traveling.

In our broken best
Our innocence compounded
To forge a distinctive crest
We stay astounded
At what stays home.

Maybe we are broken,
But what we have seen
Leaves folly unspoken,
And only the obscene
Would speak to it.

Yet arrogance glistening,
Marinating the core of man,
Always speaking, never listening,
Defers on some master plan
Justice in conquest.

Humility waits for zeal
To wound itself, the limp
Salvation in motion, reveals
What the inner imp
Took for himself.

How am I to explain these things
To ears that only hear themselves?
There is no possible conversing
When you’re labeled on a shelf
Before you begin.

Nearly noon, but my little ones
Flounce about with nightgowns on
And whisper secrets urgently
While giggling out their symphonies.
They work together with tiny hands
Building tiny, fanciful, foreign lands
Of talking ponies, bears, and beasts,
Cooking huge, fantastic feasts.

All the wild world outside these walls
Spins and misses the best view of all:
Two small girls in tangled tresses
Playing in their sleeping dresses.

Long and familiar, these nights arrive,
And I know the morning sun will sting.
Tomorrow I will fail to do, fail to thrive,
Because this night brings

Wide-eyed wakefulness.

It isn’t from fear or discontent,
Just mindfulness aware, satisfied
To let my sleep dissent
From the ruling rest that gratifies

Weary flesh.

What I have here
Is real, is good,
Is more than I should,
Above what I feared.

What I’ve held all these years
I’ve carried alone
I knew, on my own
My phantom wasn’t so dear.

Now I know the need is near
To cut the suture,
Kill the hope, free the future,
Burn the path clear.

To whom shall I confess this sin?
Who could understand why I, initially,
Preserved this love so artificially?
Why I persevered since then?

I swallowed the idea of you, when
All the world was lost, was dead,
The hope of you somehow fed
All I hoped could be, had been.

You trumped the worst of men
With quiet strength, faith, loyalty.
You were my royalty.
I would have died again, and again,

Death, separation, goodbye,
The best I could give, or you could receive,
Falling muted as an autumn leaf
Caught in the wind’s last sigh.

One hundred public admissions
Confessions, contrition,
Professions, transitions,
Hesitant at first, but resistance
Gives way to persistence-

An outward existence
From quiet submissions.

I type the keys, each letter rings
As piano notes all in ebony,
And I sing

I sing along.

I’ve walked the stanzas, stalked
Definitions until I balked
And revised

And refused.

This weeping language, seeping
Into all, still keeping me
Enthralled

And grounded.

My dead playmates, but I read
All the things they said
While they lived,

And I agreed.
I agreed.