Two tickets April. 1, 2014

  

How does she get back

to the life she left

does she want to

 dragged back to the train station

 holding tickets for several destinations

 the place she came from

 the place she might go

 only not yet knowing what is the best choice

 having known one which still speaks of decay

she  fears the one she doesn't know

there is comfort in what once was

 even painful

and yet fears taking the ride

to a place she never been

one ticket in one hand

in the other the scary ride

she needs to take yet

reluctantly clutches the former

 does she go back to what she knows

 or to what she knows could go nowhere

 is she better off going back

 to where the train derailed

or to keep on the train

whose wheels stay on the track

 to god knows where.

 

email to Al Sullivan

anniversary feb 25, 2014

 

it has been almost a year

 since she fell in love with a married man

, that moment in the Sun

light pouring in her bank of Windows

 onto a bed where two sweaty bodies

 engaged in making love

 not love not yet

 just lust she could not resist or contain

she had to know the universe might implode

and did not, not yet

having learned the fundamental lesson

 about married men

 they always go home to their wives

rarely even spending the night

 so that the sheets drenched

in semen and sweat

 grow cold and lonely

 a sad lesson she's likely

 learned the hard way

still lusting after him

 though for more than

just a chance to make love

 all of it going south within months

when she realized side chicks

 never win a man's heart

and always end up alone

the warm bed gone cold

before midnight

email to Al Sullivan

I don’t regret it 2015

 

I don't regret thinking

what I thought back then

even before there was a reason

 to Hope what I thought

 might come true

my mind churning up what

I would do if I could if you would let me

I don't regret that moment

 when I stole that first kiss

not the peck outside the diner

but the one outside the bar

and later in the car

feeling you shudder

when my fingers not so accidentally

 touched what nuns told us was forbidden

I don't regret doing it deliberately even later

cupping you up in the palms of my hands

like I would two bowls of Jello my mouth

aching  to taste

I regret letting all that slip away

even though I still dream

 and still do it in my head

email to Al Sullivan

Anticipation (2015)

 

I always dream of holding you

Pressing our body against mine

Feeling your warmth

Your softness,

Tasting your taste

When we kiss,

Always on the brink

Of a plunge I am

Reluctant to take

The build up to that

Moment as good

As the climaz,

Like an old movie

Where the hero

Wins the girl

Yet before he has

His way with her,

The holding, the touching

The tasting, tender

Mercies we feel

When we ache yet

Have not engaged,

Fingers feeling the

Soft places,

The rest of me aches

To reach,

Finding intense

Satisfaction in being

So close, yet

Not fully emersed,

The thrill of the dive

Before hitting

The water.

 

email to Al Sullivan

Hot wax on my fingers (2015)

  

I light candles

On my dinner table

And watch the wax

Drip down its

Long tapered sides

And I think of you,

What if these were

Your fingers

Instead of mind,

Feeling the sting

Of the hot wax

Where I hold too long

Or stroke too hard,

As if what I do

Causes the candles

To burn and melt,

Each stroke

Drawing out of it

This precious fluid

The sting of which

On my fingers

Also brings me

Pleasure,

Thinking it is you,

Who causes it

When if is my thinking

Of you that does,

Imagining again

The touch of you

On me that stirs up

This hot wax scalding

As it always has

And always will.

email to Al Sullivan