Loneliness Redux
Why do we crave what we don’t have?
Why does desire pull heartstrings
already broken
and where do you go when it hurts?
Where do the answers lie
but in the crevices of our minds
transcending in universes gone forever
intertwined with lonely nights
hugging pillows and looking
into the eyes of furry creatures
who, unlike us, only want food and love.
Like a bird hovering
over a universe he will never own,
why does pain make
holes in souls never understood?
Can we take our money
into which banks of love,
and in which heart will it multiply
as we clap our hands?
Where will these empty pocketbooks
of desire find their solace,
if not in broken doorknobs
never allowed to enter
and paths never walked upon?
Where is my respite,
or does my resentment resonate
on the edge of my fingertips
barely holding on to a life given to me
on a silver-coated platter
that now peels at its edges—
repairs no longer available.
Where are the wounded healers
to show us how to get up
off our scraped knees
and face the world,
which looks so empty now?
Is it too late to patch the tear in the tire
you rode your entire life,
and how can one sing youthful songs
and roll in your joy?
Is poetry the answer
to who we are and
what we will become
in this life that has gone astray?
Our Hands
When a handshake is firm, it’s a sign
of a good soul, said my father.
Beware of a limp handshake.
When you run your good hands up
and down my body, I let it shake
with simple joy.
And so I have closed my eyes, my love,
for six decades, to feel this even better,
as I turn away from the dark, knowing
that one day it shall be no more.
Truth Serum
Sipping our fourth glass of wine
in the bistro around our corner,
we chew over our forgotten pasts,
our presents and our futures.
You ask if you could tell me even more
because when you look into my green eyes,
like blood from a stabbed heart,
nothing stops your workflow.
You say that your sacred secrets
are never confessed to anyone else,
as you shake your head in wonder
about how all this has poured from you.
All I can say is that’s what friends are for,
and wine has its place, too.
Visiting Sedona
In Sedona today,
we went on a day hike.
The scenery was magnificent,
and sky as blue as the ocean,
but I was afraid to look up
and more afraid to look down.
Each day I cannot remember at least one thing—
important memories gone as I lose my menopause.
Yesterday I met with someone I hadn’t seen in years:
so many women memories, but the truth is
we were friends until we had nothing else to talk about.
For five hours I’ve roamed the hills of Sedona,
weaving through falling red rocks and once-running rivers,
and all I remember is my long dialogue with silence.
On the table outside my writing studio, I stare up at the hills
contemplating my next words, as I realize that within
my head lies a fertile literary world.
Last weekend I went to a fashion show in New York
with my middle daughter, and in the theatre’s front row
sat the Vogue editor, and I thought, “The Devil Wears a Poem.”
I woke up to a dream that you were in a place
you should not have been, and I because of it.
I hurt myself in a way that I shouldn’t have;
some thoughts are better kept to ourselves.
The Hopper painting on my office wall
pushes the most creative words out of me—
something about the view from a train window,
which is like a notebook for the eyes.
Good poems, like good fiction, need a problem
to be solved, but on some days, the jar is full
of problems with no resolution.
In Singapore, on the 27th floor
of this reclaimed city, 26 miles long
and three cultures wide, I admire what they’ve done.
Yesterday’s tea house brought a Zen calm
in a different way—tea relaxing me
in my own new kitchen.
Some things cannot be explained.
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image: Bernard Spragg
