first snow 2017

Eyes after storm crumbs

Of white brown green chicken and rice

Your body a submerged stone beneath the earth

And bobbing along at times swelling as it takes on water

Then dehydrating in tears over what has been a hard 6 years.

There is a man with a hard life

Carrying it in plastic bags in a shopping cart.

It is cold and the streets are grey.

They are not smooth.

The dark smiles of bars along chestnut

Are tight lipped, smug even.

You may ride past today,

But tomorrow--

I want to see you in every possible light—

From far away, moving closer,

Corners turned up, coy, and hips—

From far away stepping backwards as

If away from first snow, cold on bare feet.

Close, moving, swaying, holding—

Close but not looking, world in another’s world,

Hands stretching and fluttering—

Impossibly close, too close to see definitions other than color

And emotion—

Impossibly close so I am not sure where it all ends—

My jade plant grows thirsty beneath the 2 year construction,

But we have plenty of light.

The ones we love from across the country come

To soak in our 2ams and the warmth between bodies in winter.

At long last there is a sunset skiing down

With parts of me and you and everyone

That I am not afraid of.

Any time possible there is a glass being blown,

And a prayer being written about everything here

From the floorboards and the drafts to the poetry nights

And flailing of arms at nostalgia, from the distance between cedar and warrington

To the way as we walked along on new years day

Hands the only part either of us could feel,

you brought the keys to your place out of your pocket

Handed them to me and said “here.”

Sometimes the lights have to be turned out,

And as cold pours in through the window,

You stand there looking out at all the snow.

You are waiting for something but you don’t know what.

You say “look at all the snow.”

I have seen your muscled shoulders,

The weight of memory you bear not like an ox at all,

But full of familiarity like a laborer at the end of his day,

Walking home in fading heat.

I have heard the tachycardic heartbeat of this city along Washington and federal, along girard and Roosevelt.

I have woken at dawn to ride the 108 as it stalls on the hill at church lane,

And we all worried we would be late for work.

I have shuffled my feet as I walk past men with pistols in their long johns.

He goes so far as to spill his guts in winter.

She collects leaves for collages in spring.

These streets are run by blood,

Its colors changing telling us when to stop and go.

The amount of pain in a day is astounding.

The veins show on its stomach.

And still, bare-chested, dimpled skin pressed together,

 we still laugh as we wait for the suffering which will beautify us.

There is a hard road ahead, a hard one behind.

An excitement grows in me looking across at you.

It sails like an arc, it descends like snow.