30X40" Watercolor and Indian ink on canvas

Standing in a doorway

Right passed the over turned garbage

Can with vegetable scraps

And cactus hearts

Spewed out

Slinging an old guitar

Shouting

To no one

To anyone

Who will listen

In a tiger striped outfit

Wild hair

Like some soapbox preacher

To an unknown god of one

We pass by

As he mutters

"It's Halloween everyday for me"

So unlike Sandy

And her serial monogamy

Boy,girl,boy,girl

Paperdolls

Cactus heart

And vegetable scraps

Left behind

On Mission street

The scent of rose incense

Drifting through the open window

Where

"Jesus loves you"

is written in Spanish

And you know I love you

With all of me

And I would say it more often

But it's just too big and

It takes a while

For me to travel

To someplace where

I can actually

Touch you with this desire

remember?

my bones, my skin, my blood, my flying/swimming dreams,

that space neath the table where the groan ups don't dare look

where that ticklish feeling rises up like Kundalini himself

spreading out like a feast for two

my calm fingers found you

like the taste of the slightest trace of strawberries,

salty skin from sea spray

and anticipation,

the waves of sea foam

and blond hair

so exquisitely concealing

a place to rest my cheek

the rhythmic pounce of water on rock

the warm flow through sunlight

through crevice

the swirl of sea

around a wet dark stone

I heard your soft breathing before dawn

I woke you up

you didn't say a word

but I understood everything you meant,

the northern lights on the wall,

the pink through the white translucence,

the clear silence

The dew had fallen heavy

I could feel the damp through my shoes

A pavilion quiet now

in the early morning.

you sleeping behind the door

I closed with a hush

I could hear the music playing here

like a ghost

A single buttercup in the wet grass

called

and went back to dreaming

beneath your sleepy head.

I went to the library today

Ben picked out movies

Twirling the racks of dvd's

Twirling through the aisles

Passed children

Seated

Shhhh silent

I picked up a book of poems

By Billy Collins 

Turned to page 32

And learned about love

And languor

I have been hiding lately

Behind the bookshelves

Somewhere between magic

And poetry

And are you also hiding

Somewhere so near that I can't see you?

Neither of us dare speak

Pretending the other

Is not there or

If they were

They would not be paying attention

Our noses glued to

The words of others

Avoiding

Not looking

At the blank space

Left

Where our words

Passed each other attending.

I think that cells

Split in two and

In two again

And again

In one unbroken continuous chain

Through time

Knowing that someday

Soon