Togetherness

Through this window
the dawn.
For now,
the silence of early morning
echoing
between houses.
I listen intently.
Dreams are being seen
and finished
before eyes open
and interpretation begins.
Restless bodies tossing
between sheets,
others comfortably asleep.
Bodies pressing close
or pulling apart.
A man's stubble grazes
the skin
of a woman's face.
She does not pull away.

Mileage

A pair of handprints pressed into the glass
on the passenger side of the car-
smeared ever slightly,
a handmade Valentine's Day card faded
in a rarely touched nook,
a polaroid picture slipped between
scraped and scuffed cds,
accumulated ash and dirt
from driving miles
and miles with the windows
rolled down,
my youth draining
into the climbing numbers
of the odometer.
A car as weathered
as my mind.
It carries on as though
the check engine light
hasn't been staring at me
the last fifteen-thousand miles.

For Women Everywhere

I wanted to write a poem about a woman.

I stopped myself because I started thinking

of how cliche this would be.

Would it be based on a person I know?

Would it be a composite of people and

characteristics?

Would I try to pull a personality from

pure imagination?

The options that were presenting themselves

continued to grow.

Regardless of which of those routes I chose

how would I portray her?

Would I present her as some ideal beauty in

both thought and form?

Would I show her as wondrous but flawed?

Perhaps plain and dour?

Maybe she would be an artist of some type.

It's hard to say where I would have gone

with those thoughts.

Actually,

those thoughts led to this.