Sizing her up April 17, 2012

 

 

She stacks her jeans

In vertical shelves

As if filing paperwork,

Drawing them out

By size,

As if she’s never sure

Which will fit her today,

Admitting her obsession

With being overweight

When she rarely is,

Perception being the core

Of reality,

What she seen in the mirror,

Which may or may not

Really be there,

And me, seated

A few feet away,

Amazed at how

Organized she is,

All of our lives

Regulated by rituals

Like these,

Which size fits us

On this day,

When in reality

She barely changes,

While I always wear

The same size,

Too snug,

Too much the same way

Day in and day out

I envy her.

 

 

 

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how do I make love 2014

 

do I make love to her

let me count the ways

to touch the nape of her neck

the space beneath her breasts

the small of her back

 putting fingers into the space

that needs a key to unlock it all

 all this time later I still lack

 the combination she says

is needed to unlock her heart

 love a vague notion

that transcends touch or breath

smell or taste

we living with the memory

of something that sometimes

never occurred

 except in a dark and distant embrace

the night talk always meant to stay private

for love making made with words

 we dare not repeat by daylight h

ow do I make love to her

 let me imagine all the ways

 

email to Al Sullivan

It doesn’t mean anything Feb. 6, 2013

  

It doesn’t mean anything until it does, like saying size doesn’t matter, when it is all there is, like that time when she took a long ride through New York State with her boyfriend when she stumbled onto the perfect job, only the dean there has already offered it to someone else, all this from an account by an admirer who did not see the forest for the trees, or suspected something might have been amiss when she campaigned to get that job, and mysteriously, the dean took back his offer to that other person and gave it to her. It meant something then.

Or that time when her girl friend’s boyfriend began his campaign to get her, and she eventually relented, thinking it didn’t matter, until the SOB decided he wanted more than she offered, and then it meant something.

And so, when she told me how it didn’t matter with that guy she picked up at a bar, I believed her, even though I wondered whether or not it mattered when my time came to bat, and how I still wish it did since it mattered to me.

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No regrets? Sept. 23, 2013

 

 Yes, I regret it,

not going,

 not being there to witness it all,

 the court room drama,

the parade of people

 this one last glimpse of her

in all her finery,

 a queen bee floating

through the musty air,

 looking all so powerful

 while mortal men quake

 at the thought she might sting

yet, I don’t regret it,

 having already collected

 all those visions of her,

 pleasing or painful,

 the girl in the lobby

wearing a sun dress

and sunglasses,

 the stern professional

parading up the stairs

passed me,

the images she posted

 deep in the dark of night,

her face more angelic

than demonic,

though always just as tempting,

 it is not worth the risk,

 even for a last glimpse,

even knowing

 I may never see her in the flesh again.

 

 

email to Al Sullivan

Kids like flocks of geese September 18, 2014

 Kids parade the streets like flocks of geese, the same sound, only unlike summer, their coming and going more predictable, tied to school buses rather than a change of season, their world changed dramatically from when I was their age, a strange alignment of planets, the advent of new technology, carrying cell phones the way Dick Tracy did his watch, familiar faces on the screens to whom they talk, school boys dressing up punk, school girls so utterly provocative as to make the nuns who taught me cringe, their lives dictated by a whole new code I’m still shocked by, coming together and pulling apart in ways that I never imagined at their age, bliss letting them paint whatever vision they want, while I’m stuck in the past, wishing I could go back or grow up, or to have known what they already know.

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Throb dept 25, 2014

 Is throbs, just not always from the same place or for the same reason.

 I can cure with a few strokes.

 I don't always want to relieve it, needinh to feel it, needing to need it even though that is no longer possible with her, to keep on throbbing, to feel the need when I close my eyes and remember her

 I don't always want the pain to cease, feeling it making me realize I am still alive, this throbbing so entangle, so connected with visions of her, a few strokes and it vanishes, when I do not want it to vanish, embracing it just as I embrace her as a ghost, that throb reminding me of all I hope for, and will never get, and yet feel as if I have, each time it consumes me, my head filled with the fog of it , a need so desperate otherwise I would not be alive

Green fading March 24, 2026

 

A day after the parade the streets are still littered with bits of green, and high hopes for spring, glittering green, steamers and hats, empty glasses, the cheer mere echoes in the distance, as the real world regains its grip, and we all slip back into the day to day routines we can only momentarily forget, few others along this street taking notices, already forgotten, as are many of those of us who partook, this spring ritual lacking the maypoles around which to dance, and those who we would still dance with, given a chance

 

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