You rush headlong into it in your dreams
don't you
but back here on earth you are afraid and
running headlong toward love is 
for someone else
someone not yet jaded and numb
Meanwhile I wait

Mountains form and
crumble
Seas rise and
fall
Planets rotate on axes and
orbit around their sun
and still
I wait

It has been eternity that
we chase and run
we fall and flee
we love and lose and
build the wall
higher and thicker
yet

I rush to you in my dreams day in
and out
awake or asleep you are
the finish line where
everything begins
and nothing ever ends
I will weave myself into
your dream
tonight.  

our tent

under the covers

i want you

most of all

inside the tent

we have made

of words and hope

let the sunlight tarry

until dusk then

send it off to bed

night time never

fell so gently

on this earth

the world becomes

a whisper

you are now

the sky wrap me

in the cloak of

everything you are

growing up

all those times I raged
against what was
oh god what did i know of loss
until the loss became the whole
of me and i had to look for
what was left after all the
flames had died away
all the sorting through
the ashes and the past
to poke around and see
if a phoenix would arise
years ago i put my tooth
under my pillow
awoke in the morning to find
that the tooth fairy had come
no sparkling wings appear
to give me gold for loss
i dig my way to redemption

This is the death I am talking about

Before it ever happens
to you, I mean
you think it hardly will matter
at all
and then you find out

You were wrong.

Because some days
you find yourself thinking
why don't I call
it's been a while
until you remember

Oh. 

I see my father the night
he died
stumbling and bleeding
surprised so taken
by surprise to realize

This is it.

Now I drive alone
without a father
and I wonder alone
without my dad
to listen and tell me

His own thoughts.

I found something 
when my father died
and all I can think is
that if my dad were
still alive he would say

About time.

post death dream

this is the death of my father
who left without saying goodbye
caught by surprise as he was
and we begin wading through
the debris of coming to the end of
how things always have been

last night my father showed up
in my dream and I told him about the
credit card and how it no longer
mattered what was or was not
the balance/the limit
for he was now Dead

so soon he appeared to me
we were in a car floating through
some intersection as if
neither of us was driving
but both of us were trying
to figure this thing out

Dead Father

It happened this year
This month
Just one week ago
Late at night
Time flies
Yesterday he was in his early fifties and
I was pregnant with his first grandchild
He said he needed to take better care of himself
He was so happy that I had a baby
And used to stop by every Sunday on his way and
Every Friday returning again
To see the baby

We moved states away
Took that little one far from all he knew
He cried that he wanted to go home
He did not mean where we lived after moving

When my daughter arrived on earth
It took six months before my dad could visit
Holding her for the first time
She burst into tears
Afraid of her grandpa
Who adored her

Tumultuous, our relationship
Anger embarrassment cringing
Overpowering definition of everyone but himself
Until finally, old enough, I grew up
And saw my aging father and missed him
In advance of his death

Another Death Closer

Maybe the seer had it right

about all those women I have

been but she did not know we

had been trying to undo

a horrible asynchronicity

thousands of years hence.

Damn chronosynclastic infundibulum

when everything converged

within moments of mutual recognition
a roar of thwarted belonging

the rush of a tsunami
a violent tearing away.

Lullaby go to sleep forget

how you returned from many
oceans and nobody was home

those incarnations took their toll

wearing away innocence

eroding hope and meaning.

It does no good to plead with you

to see the years we spent waiting 

for the light to change were secret

preparation for the crossroads

of time and place finally poised on

opposite corners headed for collision.

Earth throws itself spinning

around the sun noisy orb
of madness and lust our
mortal lives extinguished with
a sigh another life without you

without me another death closer.

Sands fall through the hourglass
the piper comes calling for his pay

your waning heart grows

harder and your fences loom

higher still your hand becomes
a fist held up in warning. 

Fate plays me for the fool offers

poison potions willingly swallowed

deceives and seduces without resistance

easy target heart dangles from 
the bridge a bloody padlock ripped

from my chest the key thrown away.

You are always fleeing as

quickly as you can farther

this time than the last

and I am always trying to

find you even in my dreams
calling out your name in my sleep.