#thepoeming2018

My darling Chelsea,

We are two lives anchored in the ocean,

saving each other,

confident in the unmistakable trust we have.

I wish I knew how to explain my fondness for you -

How good we are together.

You’re everything I’ve wanted and everything I need:

I know this relationship will make me smile,

No matter what.

So here is to three years of you being my friend, my lover, my wife.

I wish for many more years to come.

Photo credit: Sydney Prather

Dedicated to: the love of my life, @cephasays

a Bay Area mover and shaker

the picture of health

 looked thoughtfully at the Governor’s Mansion

always room for another million dollars

 appreciated a good Bible reference

owned two shaggy dogs

 a place in the American heart

gave people time to snap pictures

 the little cracks let in

born of hubris

 bit by bit

the world drew out of focus

 bit by bit a long

journey ended

 aides couldn’t see the problem

a sign of something going on

 no one had power to stop things

it was too late

 only his arms outstretched

reaching for people

 in the front rows

to bite throats,

  the flesh of the world

To stay, rather than a pause.

“You with me?”

One smile.

“Deal.”

She kissed me possessively

into the night,

the magic unexpected.

Between the shadowed sleep

she broke me.

With a smile and laughter and tears,

the pain is waiting for me

in the garden of glass roses

I lingered when you turned toward the edge there; I had fallen before

January’s widow:

the smell of blackberry flowers,

ripe with healthy green moss

its unethical for people to

glare

 he knew better

this hostile interloper

 fingerprints all over

kill your human half

 reconsider what makes a person

but people are repellent to me

 doesn’t meet eyes

 a free man is inoffensive,

a sleep walker

 they convince themselves

the world is going to care about what they think.

 try to take them over

body and mind

 You’re not going to melt?