A Good Enough Love

I am as in love with you
as I have ever been, which,
I admit, is not much,

but what do you say we spend
the rest of our lives
exchanging lovers' words
and knowing glances.

Let's pull tight the ribbons
of our youth and run short-
breathed into the asthmatic night.

Let's swallow our watches
and walk hand-in-hand
through the painted streets
of this back-breaking city.

It won't be love, but it
will be close, and if love isn't
a hand-grenade,
I don't know what is.

Atlanta on a Thursday

I don't recognize the language.
it falls from his tongue like
gumballs or pebbles. The words
are round and smooth and
collect at his feet.

He is unusually tall, and his
ankle high boots undermine
his American jeans.

He is Starbucks and twelve
countries that I've never been to.

We're both heading to Cincinnati.
My transfer has been cancelled.
His, I'm sure, is right on time.

Midnight in Dusseldorf

There are rabbits in downtown Dusseldorf,
small coveys that pour out
onto well-manicured parks after the
gates have been locked.

Walking alone last night, I stopped
to watch a pair run circles around
a bench near the Rhine.

It is a curious infestation but
one that could be expected in this
gingerbread country where clocks
are the broken hands of giants,
where cobblestones are skulls of the dead.

Kayaking in Portugal

Kayaking along the Rio Montenegro
I saw purple flowers that
climbed walls like ants

and small beaches that
speckled the river's banks
like upturned fish.

The mountains on either
side wore a heavy coat of
green, and small cities

glittered on the mountains'
shoulders like sunlit broaches.

The sun was hot and scraped
its teeth against our skin.

The water was cold and
swept by quickly like a
midsummer Portuguese night.

Kindling

It is September, and the lake
is several yards from the pier.

The dirty water is mud and
bugs and a reflection of this

bone dry town. The people
are asleep in the dry lake bed,

holding their cracked heels and
dusty children. The trees and

dried up bougainvilleas will
burst into flames at any moment.

Somewhere, there is a cigarette,
a match, or an errant spark.

On it is written the ghastly history
of this soon unforgettable pyre.

Stitched

Come let me take you
on a tour of this
patchwork campus.

On thin threads
we will bob and
weave through the
fabric of this place.

I will show you
every stitch of a student,
every hem of tradition.

We will walk from
square to square
on needled legs,

sewing our colors,
picking up where others
left off.

And one day,
years from now,
reclining and still,
we will pull
this campus over our
cold bones

and be warmed
by its quilted memories.

DA 1060

I'm sharing a Dallas-bound
Delta flight with a pastor
and a salesman.

If this were the beginning of a
joke, I am sure that I
would be a rabbi.

The pastor is kind and
engaged and speaks of himself
in muted arrogance. it is
not a fault as much as it is
a hazard of his occupation.
Sheep seldom follow shepherds
that are sheepish.

The salesman is in a unique
balancing act between boasting
and confession. He tempers every
story with a plea for acceptance.
Every jewel he holds up to
the light, he carefully lays at
the feet of the pastor.

I am far from their
conversation, the beard
offering a certain purchased distance
from middle-age, conservative America.

I wonder, if in the same conversation,
I would quickly show my better side.
"I'm returning form a mission trip."
"I've been to your church of 635"
"I also know Jesus"

Or would I tell him that me
Bible is in my checked luggage,
and I carry it around like a weight?

Would I tell him that I don't
trust him or his designer shoes?