We awake just in time
For New Year’s Day.
You alive me awkward
under the warm winter window
Where the blinds break
Your face— still A sliver of sleep.
I’m breathing but you’re loving me
sustains me.
You propose a new idea
more than Sunday prayers, scrambled eggs
to break the twentieth century monotony
of our first decade,
You say, murmuring: Ice Cream…
We arrive at the Parlor the strip mall that used to be trees
Remember?
Brain Freezes have replaced evergreens.
You are skin and Milk
Cookies. And
Cream,
But
The poem is not inside the Cold Store. No,
It’s outside. It’s In your
Eyes. Yes,
Their blue keeps our love alive.
Despite me. Inside me,
In you, sitting close to me sharing more than our
Ice cream,
Inside me (us?)
You loved me, your love a suburb
Under development: burger joints all the rave and
And 24/hr milkshakes froze my memories.
I’m amazed you have loved me so well.
Even when I ran away, tried to make distances my comfortable place.
You just stayed.
Your space: the church
My childhood stained
The Sanctuary my fear wounded me Away
From.
The space I craved where serenity
Was the sleep of those fifteen minutes
Before the alarm goes off and noise starts life.
Eating mint chip and chocolate chips,
Brownies. And Fudge
I marvel how you serve nothing
And effortlessly
scoop me away from me
If love is as simple as you make it to be,
Simple like Lemon Sorbet
I wonder,
where was I when your love
Was present
When you were teaching my eyes to open
And love something more than I loved myself
The way you love our son and kept us together.
What was I looking for those late nights,
You home, me not
Somewhere else what could be more important
Than apple pie A La Mode on Christmas at home?
I was too involved in being uninvolved. All that….
would have brought a better man home
But for your grace…
Watching you eat ice cream.
Not worrying about me
For once, my tongue sleeps behind our teeth
My silence present, for once
Even though I am not absent
In this moment,
Curbside the same strip mall we have fought in
A thousand times
We are fingerstouching
Knee
To
Knee
Like virgin courting
On movie nights
Corn husking. Eating
But back then I was
the east coast
missing
From
Your
Western
Shore
But today your spoon is in my cup. Dips
Into me.
I know I am a part of your love.
This hard bench
Doesn’t support me
Not half as well as
Your breath:
The awareness of this
Chocolate ice cream
Yearning for you inside my belly.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
i love it thank you gahahjajahshsfdfshajacdgdhaJXFUAJXFSHJFCGSJ