#commonbelief

Meeting places

  I saw you first in the parking lot

with fluorescent lights

beating against your face.

I liked the way your shadow fell

upon the grayed out pavement.

It was cold and it was dark

and your embrace made me feel safe.

    The second time we were in the car.

Red lights from another vehicle flashed

and burned across your cheeks.

Yellow streetlamps beamed

Through your tinted windows:

light then dark, light then dark.

I liked seeing your yellow grin.

You played Sinatra and I thought:

We could dance on the side of the road,

there, on the corner maybe,

and we'd be happy.

    We met at the movies next.

I don't remember the name of the flick;

All I knew was your touch in the darkness

and the heat of your minty breath.

Your thoughts seeped through your fingers,

As little messages running straight to my heart.

I felt them ebb (with care)

from your little wounded soul and

I wanted to hold them a little while.

The film ended too quickly.

    Then we were in your room.

Door closed. Christmas lights were on.

The computer whirred in the corner.

I didn't need the sun to see you or know

what it is we both felt.

I knew from the day we met

what it was that caused our smiles

and made us frown when we departed

from our meeting places.

    I decided then that one day

We would stop doing this charade.

Our eyes would stop searching crowds

For familiar faces in unknown places.

I decided this in your bed,

Wrapped in white sheets and black blankets.

I decided this and you decided this

Because we didn't need the light

To know what the other felt

Your hands, finding things they cannot keep,

are wondrous on my body

Which is a forest lush and deep.

Few tread here.

It is sacred and quiet.

Your hands are tiny travelers

Who over-turn each small leaf.

They see the trees—both alive and dead.

Your hands, they climb each branch

Which is a quaint memory

Formed from a seed born long ago.

They climb and they climb

But not too awfully high

Because they’re afraid of what they’ll find.

They don’t touch every tree

And they don’t go too deep:

The travelers fear what seeds await

And the things that they could bear.

And yet they see, already,

Too much:

They see the black trees

Burned from the inside by a fire

That was beyond thinkable degrees,

Though silent in its destruction

And painful all the same.

The hands feel the warmth from long ago,

From flames turned to glistening ash.

They feel these burns and become

Murderers.

They hack at the deadened bark

And kill the still-there-shouldn’t-be-there-wounds.

And then they move on

Because death is ugly

And this woodland is beauty uncorked.

So they press on, swimming in tangled grass

And caressing rough branches

Despite any splinters cutting their skin.

The travelers don’t mind a little pain

In this place. Because when they look

at all the black trees (which they hate)

They realize that pain is too tragic to mind.

That’s why they killed the black trees.

When does a traveler know when to stop?

Maybe when he feels lost enough

In the beauty and the ugliness and

He believes he’s found too much to keep

He’ll turn back and never return.