My first root canal,
The dentist said the tooth
Could be saved, but --
It would take care.

I was cleaned out,
Drilled through numb,
The a temporary filling.

"Bite down. Chew. Bite down
Again".

It never fit quite right,
Not noticing the crack
That ran straight to the gum.

The tooth was pulled --
My first one.

My hands have closed
Around your frame, and you
Have let them own you
For a time.

Parting the curtain of your skin,
Light revealed you to me as a room.

A gentle candle flame burning on your cheeks,
On the sun-red-already and freckled cheeks,

Running water under the canoe looks like glass;
We are the only boat on the creek.

Take your pictures at night, of trees behind light posts,
And bother not with sleep.

Talk and talk and talk and talk and talk
(But take a special care not to speak).

it is perhaps something in
your skin,
(your skin the inside flesh
of almonds) or in the subtle of
your lips which
pull-and-press-and-speak—
no,
whisper—words my inside beating heart
alone can hear
,that make me think of this:
Spring is in you (and too
has found a home in me); yet a thing is
missing—

the urge to kiss was meant for kissing

Partly Cloudy, or: Mostly Sunny

Words come and go in waves. They lap at the waters edge of my mind, a tranquil pool disturbed at times by an unseen wind. This is my spot for respite. Only here can I be both master and student. The wind feels gentle on my face like a summer dusk and the fading glow of sunlight.

I must not put reality into little compartments. I have had the past tendency to package things up in boxes and store them in the attic of my awareness. I am now opening boxes like it's my birthday, and it just may be that every brand new day is, and the gift too.

The ears and eyes of my heart are open, filling with the God-sound and God-light.

Shakespeare, 1604

Take, O, take those lips away
That so sweetly were forsworn,
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn;
But my kisses bring again, bring again.
Seals of love, but seal'd in vain, seal'd in vain.

To Read Upon the Death of Beloved Friskey

Tragic a death so young,
Oh, so young,
She was nearly twenty-one.
Brought home like Jesus
In a towel, like my brother and I
Had won, duped our mom,
Our kitten relieved her bowels lightly
In my arms
As if she had known them her whole,
Short life.

She spent her later years
As a fractured cat,
On as many medications as my mother,
Having survived several illnesses:
Kitty diabetes, the way she got so fat
When in college I would stay away
For eight months at a time;
Kitty arthritis, how she battles daily,
Outlining every movement
With a tired feline-line;

There were the years we could not let her outside.

She soon lost her hearing, felt life
Through vibration alone,
And my brother found it darling fun
To raise his voice to her, close by her ear,
As an ignoramus speaks to a foreigner.

At the very end you often saw her
Cat-pawing around the dining room,
Carefully inspecting the floor
Like searching for defects in wood-grain.
Eventually she found a spot,
Hunched her back and,
Looking up, just peed
And scanned the room as if
She needed arms to rest in.