lucky numbers
2 poems from a collection (Refractions of a Life)
The Hermit (9)
The year started with long evenings,
Leaving purple shadows and tendrils of street signs.
Dark, muddled distortions, and flat illusions.
You’re in the yard, musing about birds.
I never told you, but I went to town that night
To watch all the stupid little scurrying ants
Moving all around, flushing in and out
So goddamn happy to be alive.
It’s cold outside, and somewhere, someone loves you.
And it’s no problem.
I saw this beautiful princess castle in the store window,
Made of lace and plastic and gleaming like a vision.
I thought about the plans we made. I thought about your big blue hands, loving your verbs, choking on your affectionate germs, and gracing your quiet violence. So love me sacred, love me honest.
The night is closing, so give me a minute.
Love me as the stars weaken and falter, die into milky ghosts, and float forever into velvet darkness.
Love me even then.
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Wheel of Fortune (10)
A blanket of fog roars and echoes through the city.
Tonight, the clouds are fragrant
And nobody is screaming
Or unearthing bitterness.
Your neighbor is mumbling nonsensical
Sweet poems on his porch. And you
Don’t have a pencil, so you commit them to your mind palace;
That night, I lay down and recounted the poem again,
I inhale a stifling long breath, trapping it in my ribs
until it becomes muscle memory.
My mind wanders to the chapel of a dreamless sleep.
Chapel, chapel, chapel, chapel.