No choice but to follow

Certainly she was
behind him,
he thought, as he ascended the narrow
ledge out of the unforgiving shadow.

Naturally, spring follows winter,
the full moon, the dark.
No doubt she was there.

Yet, he stopped,
looked back.

He just had to make sure.

He Just Had to Make Sure

I did too.
I ran back to the house.

I saw that nothing had changed.
The fish swimming
in loose circles
under the same stars
nesting in the trees.

Rooms cupping
our laughter
poured into the hands
of the mornings.

Our pillow whispers,
roaming,
lazy as sleep walkers.

Our eyes, holding fast
to the white flowers
in the window-ledge light.
Still.

But I did notice that the sunline across
the porch was different,
its shadow having deepened.

Oh love, in a few years,
what will become of us?

What Will Become of Them?

A woman caught
the girl’s smile
when she held gardenia
for the first time.

At two o’clock,
the wind exhaled
as summer cooled
under the mango tree.

What will become of them—
a mother, a daughter.
Time seeping through their skins
until they are pulled back
to the starting place
where they wondered
what it feels like
to breathe.

Before the locked door,
the starched white sheets,
the Freud-speak,
there was a way in.
An unguarded door-
the eyes the lips
grab the handle;
skin raw sugar
turn the key;
my neck wet grass.
You say I love you with
an old rising force that
carries your breath like
orange orchids streaming down
a long stemmed waterfall
ferrying to the edge,
and my heart beats and my heart beats
salt brimmed electric novas
Breathe.
I am ruined, you are resurrected
I am the lion, and you the lamb.
The missing button and buckle
of these loose ends,
as permanent as sliced moonlight
through my jalousied window