Waiting For You
A year.
Thirty-eight different dreams that I remembered in the morning.
Three that involved shrouds.
Hanging around. Somewhere. Anywhere.
Looking in mirrors.
Only way I could tell I was still here.
Learning all there is to know
about the springs in the sofa,
the cellar cobwebs.
A lot of wondering if you’d even recognize me
(see ‘looking in mirrors’ above).
Trying to give my patience some kind of structure.
Telling myself stories.
Scribbling a mass of images in a notebook.
Noticing the sob in my voice
when I spoke to myself,
the hollow when I talked with others.
Infatuated with time from
the flat inhuman numbers on the microwave
to the incessant ticking of my watch.
But fearful of eternity.
Checking out rainfall
to see what mood it was in.
Same with streetlights.
And the moon especially.
Mistaking hawks for vultures.
Taking out the garbage.
Dogged by the thought that I hadn’t taken out enough.
Naked in the shower, of course.
Three hundred and sixty-five of them to be exact.
Three that involved shrouds.
Picking roses and watching them die.
Wary around knives.
And the perfume of others.
Creating a self-mythology
that borrowed from Prometheus and Atlas.
Recollecting
until memory became this faucet
I couldn’t turn off.
Then reminiscing as well,
which almost flooded the house.
Darkness Trail
I stroll along the river,
afraid, not of my surroundings,
but of what I have done
to the love offered me.
I walk,
through chilly wind
off the waters,
an avenue of oaks,
but my attention
is, as always,
drawn to a night sky
whose immensity renders me irrelevant.
Then I think of my life,
the urgency to love what I have,
or this is no ramble,
but a parallel to life,
cold and blind,
with just a stumbling way forward.
Then I remember
the propensity of feelings
to become light,
of moments when I was open to receive,
times when I could believe
and there was someone else
of the same belief.
In this blackness,
I could continue to meander,
drift, or even vanish altogether.
So let us stay close.
Otherwise,
I am the darkness
that’s surrounding me.
Morning on Block Island
Burst of sudden light
as crossing
greyish-blue altostratus
frays apart—
featureless
white silhouettes
shepherded by the saline
breath of ocean
to far corners of the sky—
morning can’t begin
until the sun attends
to bare skins best’s interests—
and coffee
feeds on the scraps of sleep
while shrunken hands
grow larger
as they grip tight to the cup.
«RELATED READ» POEMS BY REBECCA SHEA: The Tin Can Man, Honeybee»
image: Wikimedia Commons
