A little less love

Though you have an endless supply of it,
Give me a little less love.
A steady trickle if you will,
Even in spurts now and then.
Think of me in smaller terms.
Picture me as taking it
In my joined hands.
My hands, as you know,
Are not good with floods and dam-breaks,
cascades and deluges.
Give me love that keeps me going,
that does not choke, does not kill,
does not wash me far away
from you.

Dream Breasts

My breasts were firm tight
succulent throbbing globes
in the mirror,
filling my hands like bowls
of plenitude.
They were not the sad, hairy absences
my hands now grate over.
The mirror's sweet lie look me close
to baby lips - joining soul to soul
through my pointed pink soul ends,
the tickle and pinch of nourishing.
There is a lot more to a mirror
than a boring reflection of imperfections.
It gets playful sometimes,
poetic even, irreal as well,
And shows what is not,
but could have been
and could be.

Pre-approved

Imagination is for things
That are not.
Either just not there
Or had and lost.
So fantasy or pain of loss.
Tolkiens have exclusive rights
To the former
While mine is a larger group
Called the romantics.
Membership demands are
Very democratic.
All you need are problems
Of personality and
Some masochism: no proof
Of identity needed.
All humans qualify.

Work in Progress

You know how we do that?
Conjuring up “friends”
When we feel
What we want to say
Will sound better
From elsewhere:
Oh, I have a friend who used to…

I think I am one of them.
I mean I am one
Of those “friends”
Conjured up
By someone somewhere
Using me as a proxy
Tentative self.

Like a test-drive vehicle.
If it works
They make more;
If not
They improve upon it.
Or simply give up.

No complaints: first drafts
Can never be disowned.
They go
Into air-conditioned
Glass cases in museums
If their author dies
A memorable death.

Or to Sothebys.

No Promises

No stubble-tickle, no back-rub,
Only morning air on my lips,
It hurts just hurts to wake up
To a day that has no you.

To a day that has no promises
of mock-anger and true love.

To one that isn't sweetened
By the sweat on your nape.

It's all effort to get up and get by
On a day that wraps you in a night
Over there out there on the other side.

I am already your tomorrow
So I can tell you how it hurts.

Since you love me oh so much
Be warned about tomorrow,
Be warned about this day
That has no promises.

All the time

And then that had to be.
That's how it always had to be.
There. You had said that.
And that's that.
The end of things.
They can now fester in the silence
that clatters like spoons on china.
They can now grow and cloud my eyes.
They will now hide
in the new space
between you and me
when we hug.
You will not know how I wonder
at how normal you are.
Normal shall not be wondered at.
But we will carry on
Just as we always have.
Until one day I scream,
drowning it in the cry
of the fire engine,
making you more normal than ever,
giving you another chance to say
"See! I told you!"
It will all be like just a screech
of chalk on blackboard.
The lesson's the same.
It happens.
All the time.

Dear One,

This is the round tana
our conversations shape now;
what we go around, not through.
This can now be measured
as that which we do not speak.
This is the sum total
of all that you never ask me.
Plus all that I want to tell you,
that come out in strange tongues.
This is why I travel miles some days
to see you. Who cares about the long-
borrowed book?
This is what could fill
all my silences around you.
This is what we make poignant
by the suffering to tell and ask.
This is what stays back
in the filter.
This is what never disturbs
our tea.
This is what you must hear.
This is what I must speak.
Now.