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Mosquito bites and daffodils
Yesterday I saw a sunset and decided to write it for you. I thought if I slaved and bled over my words, I could make you feel my moment and maybe shed a tear. I sat down with my self-inspired mind lest someone come and ruin my picturesque moment for you. But I forgot how…
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The serenade
The jazz reverie plays two blocks over and the lovers speak without saying a word in the open windows of the apartment above the city in the south They know the night is young but the look in their eyes is long “You can tell so much with one kiss” and trust passes between them…
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Needles
It was in the middle of her bedroom, my grandmother’s Singer Sewing machine. She never used it, not that I know of anyway I used to check the color of the spindle thread for years it was tangerine later faded to peach I always wondered why her sewing table had a gas pedal like the…
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After we love I
feel breath slowing chests expelling the passion that gave us flight now soothes and offers sync as we settle into tranquil sleep This poem was written around the turn of the century.
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Your hand found mine
A heat where warmth should have been A forbidden fruit, a familiar friend You rubbed my hair I touched your knee You called me beautiful I knew I was weak Mixed with passion were your apologies I memorized your sighs It begins and ends with tonight. My heart breaking before my eyes Knowing it’s wrong…
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Par Avion: Air Mail
I have no understanding of your African world, with electricity three hours a day and a taxicab that comes to take you to Cotonou twice a week, should you wish to go. I have nothing to tie me to Ouidah but you, whose hardest times before now include summer nights when we slept in bras…
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Waiting for October
I do not like writing about where I am, in this office with light gray walls that I call middle ground. Beside me sits a typewriter, covered with dust collecting since 1974 and a computer outdated in 1998 no one knows how to use. I do not like writing about a place where Joe has…
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Unraveling
On our first date, when your face scored target on my eyes, you told me it was the best date you’d ever had because we fell asleep on each other on the couch and didn’t wake until daylight. That was two years ago, and now you have porcupine daggers in your eyes when you look…
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It was a curvy road finding you
But when our eyes touched joined in our new world I could do nothing but stare and wonder what it would take to know you to hold you and then we said hello Cedar Mountain was ours but it couldn’t keep us You belonged to the shore but my heart was yours You were in…
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Rekindle the wrong
The sun may rise silently above the sheltered lake but it won’t go unnoticed by those who will create darkest lies that move soundlessly away from those who hide their faces in the morning’s harsh dawn. Today I saw a demon and I knew that you were mine but I was tired and weary not suitable to…