Sun Burst

They left their car behind in the Pan Handle of Florida.

Broken down along the side of the road.

Tin can from a Chunky’s Chicken Corn Chowder soup barely holding

Together the rotten muffler.

Love.

Flashes like heat waves rolling up from asphalt

Pavement, as smoke eddies and drifts from a lit

Pall Mall filter Gold Light 100, grasped like a lifeline into

Another time where glorious naivety

Flexed in her 19 year old calve muscles.

Feet strong and unweary, propped on the dashboard watching the

Moss dipped trees roll along outside the window while Jethro Tull blasts from the radio.

These stories written in the power of youth and the glory of

Summers wandered through decades ago.

Her skin tattooed now with narratives and bygone memorabilia.

Literally.

She, her, I, wears her heart on her sleeve.

(Left side inside wrist wreathed with cherry blossoms)

She, her, I, has not forgotten the sunshine splash of freckles

Constellating his face and the desire badgering her heart to kiss each one.

Love rises like mist in a swimming pool at night in

Saint Augustine awash in humidity and the susurration of wind in palm leaves.

Song of flash pan memories born on the wings of cicadas,

Bark of a worried dog, crackle of fire on the edge of night,

Embers glowing on her (my) face, fronting strength under the curious

Gaze of heroin junkies and good ol’ boys with running mates and prostitute

Companions holding bent Budweiser can carburetor crack pipes.

She, her, I, will dance, never the less, none the less, dance now, dance then

Beneath the swelter of stars, amid the whispers of sexy, sexy, sexy

Spilling from the mouths of men unable to grasp her, attain her, hold her (me).

Love, lost like a plasticine slipper in the dusky playa at sunset.

Burnished with desire to kiss the bottom lip of his mouth and vanish into the

Streets of the Mission District, oh my sweet San Francisco how unexpected

Summer night strewn me with ghost kisses of fog being sucked in over Twin Peaks.

She, her, I will climb the hills back towards the sea, remember her (me) her face

Aswirl in dark curls, your face writ with awe, once again in her (my) hands.

Oh bluest eyes

Peering back into mine, this blissful fantasy a phantasmagoric feeling all

Ephemeral and moon washed will haunt you, I, me no more.

For yes, oh yes,

My darling.

This too shall pass.

Here Again

These old memories.

They bang at my head.

A washing of blue jean sky,

Salt tenderized by the sea.

Light.

So.

Californian.

Like my soul,

Built on mussel sea shells

Found by the sea shore.

Sally sells them for a penny a piece.

(find a penny pick it up)

In a brown paper bag I left them.

Hiding, the shells–

Underneath the Volkswagen’s seat.

The bounce of light against the

Rear window in the back seat of the Bug.

Little girl.

Brown eyes wide.

Watching the clouds scroll by,

Catching glimpses of ocean blue between the dunes.

Side mirror reflections bring me back to now.

Decades later.

Decades.

(All day long you’ll have good luck)

Four to be exact.

Those days down by the sea

Watching the water foam over the shore,

Tiny sandpipers scurry.

Coppertone baby in white panties,

Already insecure in my body,

Scampering at the edges of the sand burning bright

Heat rolling up my legs from my feet.

I am.

Curly headed.

I am.

Sweet lipped.

I am.

Brown as a nut berry.

(See a  penny, let it lie)

Pink soled feet softened by the rasp of sand.

Now I am plagued by these,

Photographs of melancholia–

Nostalgia tinged with seaweed.

The cry of mermaids in the grotto.

Sun high.

Heat on high

Cooking hotdogs on aluminum foil on the hood of the Volk’s.

Sand, a grit in my teeth.

Running back to the water, the ocean nips at my feet.

I find another shell for my paper bag.

(All good luck will pass you by)

Listen for the soundtrack to these memories.

One that drifts on the radio dial of Northern California

70s folk rock.

The outlines of my heart.

The nook in the cafe.

A flash of vinyl, the undertone scratch of needle finding the groove.

The light.

The light.

The light.

The smell of salt.

The hint of driftwood bonfires at the edge of night.

Golden foiled light in the dying

Embers of my childhood.

Bespoke.

Bag of shells.

Halo of white sun as I close my eyes to

Everything.

Lost again in that bright light.

Washed out in the sun.

Freckling my face.

I am.

Softened now

By these.

Kisses of eternity.

It Bears Repeating

The playlist I made you many months ago.

I haven’t listened to it in a while.

Things were hard.

Strange.

Sad.

Oh god were things sad.

I listened to the music and cried.

I stopped listening to it.

But today.

Tonight.

Well.

I dipped back in.

So good.

So damn good.

Just like you baby.

Stolen kisses in the car.

Your head leaned back against the headrest.

The look in your eyes when you look at me.

Oh the magic.

Damn it baby.

You are the best.

I belted out the songs coming home in the car.

The Christmas lights still up, the traffic still slow, everyone still out of town.

Holidaze.

Sweet love.

My love.

My dear.

Dearest, dear.

I felt like I floated home, drifting down towards the sea with all its love gathering in the passing moonlight.

The songs make me goosebump.

I really love you.

It still boggles my mind that I have had you in my life.

I don’t question it.

I don’t have to know why.

I just know that you love me.

And.

I love you.

What will happen.

I don’t know.

I don’t have to.

I just know how I felt tonight.

Song mix on repeat.

Making me smile.

My heart swelled, pushing against my ribcage.

My heart big, swollen, full of this music.

All the songs about you.

I have never made another man a playlist.

Or a mixed tape.

Just to date myself.

I have made you, though, many.

This one is dear to me, though they all are sweet.

This one special.

My first attempt at letting you know musically how much you mean to me.

I think I did a pretty good job.

I had forgotten what songs were on and when one faded and the next came on.

I just smiled harder.

Sang louder.

Felt my love for you grow again.

How is it so?

Extraordinary.

This expansion of love, like the universe.

On and on and on.

Forever and ever.

Amen.

Penny and the Quarters.

Aretha Franklin.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.

The Cranberries.

Carly Simon.

(You really are the best)

Barbara Lewis.

The Ronnettes.

Bill Withers.

Peggy Lee.

Stevie Wonder.

And last, but oh so not least.

Etta James.

Had to end with a bit of punch.

Like how I feel, knocked down drunk with love on you again.

Smitten kitten.

Me.

Again.

Who knew?

So.

I guess what I am saying.

Well.

It bears repeating.

I am happy.

I got to see you today and there will be more of you to come.

And.

Baby, this bears repeating too.

I’m yours.

Baby.

Sweet baby.

I am so yours.

Now.

And.

Always.

In other words, until eternity.

 

11 Months Ago

Today.

You kissed me in the door way to my heart.

The threshold was crossed.

I have been altered.

Changed.

Irrevocably.

Fast forward.

Today.

Your face.

This morning.

When I said.

“Happy eleven months.”

I had no idea why.

It just.

It just.

It just popped out.

It’s not been a happy eleven months.

Has it baby?

At least not the last few months.

It’s been roller coaster months.

Up and down and side ways.

Kisses in the dark corners of my heart.

Tussles in the sand dunes of my soul.

Tears on my pillow.

Tears on your shoulder.

Tears in my car.

How I have gotten home sometimes I still wonder.

Bleary eyed and heart sore.

Tender in places and spaces inside of me that I did not know existed.

You are so interwoven in me.

Sometimes there is comfort in this, closeness, interconnectedness.

Sometimes.

Pain.

The heart pulled and ripped and torn.

The love though.

The love.

Oh.

The love for you my sweet, sweetest, sweeting love.

So much.

I thought I knew every chamber and echo cavern in my heart.

Then you kiss me, again, here, there, and everywhere.

And.

There is more, there is more space, my rooms, more places.

You engulf me.

I am filled.

Your words in my ears.

Your love like a swaddling comfort to wrap myself in when I am tender.

Sore.

Tired.

“I sure love you,” you said to me, as I lay curled in your arms, adrift on the rise and swell of your breath in your chest.

You don’t remember saying it.

But I do.

Oh.

I do.

And it comforts me when you are not here.

My eyes.

Now.

Full of tears.

My throat choked with love.

Love that hasn’t gone anywhere.

Love that only seems to grow bigger.

Despite being boxed in, held tight, reined in.

Bounded in boundaries.

It slips past and swells into the sunlight.

Rises with faith and hope.

Rises like the uptick of your ribcage underneath my head.

Rises like the words from my mouth

As you drifted off to sleep.

That one night not so long ago.

“I sure love you too.”

 

Beautiful And Drunk

Intoxicated.

Tipsy on the way you look at me.

The way you hold me tight.

The feel of your arms around me.

Besotted with you face.

The way it is framed by the window pane behind you.

The view of the river and the dark limbs of trees wet with the falling snow.

Snow.

Magicked from above on your whim.

To sucker punch me with your charms, the brightness of your eyes.

The adoration there.

Dreamy and smitten with you.

There is nothing I could imbibe that would render me more inebriated.

Than your face.

Softly bombed and smote on the laughter that falls from your mouth into my eager ears.

God.

Damn.

How I love you.

I cannot tally all the moments that whirl in my head.

I have snap shots.

Photographs of you.

Kissing your cheek in front of a Rothko.

Holding your hand walking across red brick alleys.

The birds, out of nowhere, singing, harmonizing our love, trilling it loud to the sky.

I turned my face up to that sky and watched the clots of snow drift down, catching some on the tip of my tongue and laughing, knowing that soon you would kiss that self-same mouth.

Sitting across a table from you while music from the soundtrack of our love story played over the speakers.

Snatches of songs that we send one another.

Playlists of longing.

Songs of sorrow and sadness and desires.

Torch songs.

Blues songs.

Love songs for lovers.

All love songs remind me of you now.

But.

Some.

More than others.

You know the ones.

I am woozy with you.

You have gone to my head.

Once again.

Punch drunk on your love.

Enchanted and elated.

Enthralled.

And.

Though I may be foolish.

 

I hear music.

I think of fairy tales.

And.

I want your happily ever after.

I want your love always.

Forever.

I want you.

Won’t you want me too?

Just say you do.

Just please.

Say you do.

 

Hold me close and hold me fast
The magic spell you cast
This is La Vie En rose

When you kiss me heaven sighs
And though I close my eyes
I see La Vie En Rose

When you press me to your heart
I’m in a world apart
A world where roses bloom

And when you speak…angels sing from above
Everyday words seem…to turn into love songs

Give your heart and soul to me
And life will always be
La Vie En Rose.

 

 

 

Frank Sinatra

Christmas carols.

Laying in your arms in the glow of the blue lights on the tree.

My heart beat syncopated with yours.

Warm, soft tears slide down my face.

I hope you do not notice.

Content and wrapped in your embrace a softening shelter I did not know I needed.

I think about you.

Love.

And.

Our.

Love.

So many kinds.

Blue love.

Joyful love.

Peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie love.

Christmas carol love.

Hanging filigree ornament love.

Pink bunny love.

Walks on the beach at twilight love.

Butterflies in the garden love.

Flowers wrapped in gunny sacks and tied with twine love.

Candlelight love.

Untold love.

1,000 kisses love.

Tears on my pillow love.

Crows passing red berries in the snow, beak to beak, love.

Love letters love.

Poetry love.

Shameless love.

Not sorry love.

Not safe love.

Hands entwined love.

Squish love.

Passionate love.

Chemistry love.

Alchemical love.

Magic love.

Moonlight love.

Star shine love.

Dressing up in my prettiest dress for you love.

Pink glitter lip gloss love.

Baby girl love.

Dearest, sweetest, tenderest love.

Vulnerable love.

Smash love.

Precious love.

Spectacular love.

Cannot wait to see you love.

Miss you all the time love.

Dreamy love.

All the love I have for you, love.

Christmas Eve love.

Wishing you all the joy love.

All the blessings of love.

All the happiest happiness of love.

For you.

My love.

Wishing you it all.

Merry Christmas baby.

I love you.

 

 

The Moon In The Avocado Tree

Reminds me of you.

I sit.

Reflect.

Stare.

Dream.

The sky.

I watch the stars and think of little cable cars.

A movie scene.

Holding your hand.

Climbing the hills of the city.

Trying to get closer to the sky.

Trying to be closer to you.

So.

I wait for you.

Here.

While you are there.

So far away.

My eyes prickle with tears that do not fall.

My heart aches with yearning, longing, wistful wanting.

To hear your voice in my ear on the phone.

My ear aches for your breath to be there against it.

Instead of pressed to the machine carrying your voice.

Through the airways I hear you and long to wrap myself around you.

I miss you.

Oh.

I do.

So much.

Very.

Very.

Very.

Listen, can you hear it, the music, we dance slowly to.

And the afterglow of your

Last kiss on my mouth.

Which flutters awake and brushes me tender.

I need your kisses.

I need them so.

Counting down the minutes and moments until I am in your embrace again.

My face flushed with unbearable heat when I was cold today.

Thinking of you.

Then hearing your voice, husky and warm filled with its own kind of longing.

I still shudder thinking of how we came together.

That we are still together.

That I get to be with you, just not as soon as I want to be, right now.

Soon  you say.

Though.

It.

Is.

Not.

Soon enough.

Never soon enough.

Until you are here and I am smashed with your love.

And when I think of us.

I am in awe.

That this all came about.

You and I.

Some divine design.

Sacred and profound.

Lustful and chemical.

Chimerical.

I could never have imagined this.

Us.

Together.

Though apart.

For the moment.

Thus.

I swear, with all the softness of a dreamy mouth, to keep you close.

Though you are afar.

You are right here.

Ensconced.

In my heart.

At least this is what I tell myself.

While I watch the moon.

Drifting through the avocado tree.

 

 

 

The Language of Love

Truths that we experience without speaking.

A synthesis of our kisses.

The emotions expressed in the color of your face.

In the push of your lip.

In the crinkle of laugh lines around your eyes.

You say so much to me.

My heart swells.

The over arching expression of wholeness when I am held by you.

A bubble of time and space that is infinite.

Expansive.

Delirious.

Sometimes I catch you looking at me and I lose my breath.

Sometimes I look at you.

And the wilderness of joy that breaks out inside me.

Well.

It is wondrous.

The opulence of you.

The shine.

Your comeliness makes me swoon.

And your charm.

It is lavish and magnificent.

Our language is poetry and magic.

Music lyrics.

And.

Laughter.

Great big guffaws of it.

You make me sing with laughter.

It spills from me like sunshine.

And sometimes.

When you are far I still feel that you are speaking to me.

I feel it in my body, an ache, incessant, in my bones.

That you touch me without even being in the same room as me.

Your love overspills the boundaries of time and distance.

It kisses me on my forehead.

My cheeks.

My tender face.

Glowing for you in the dusky light just after sunset.

Glimmering at you in my own language of love.

That you may decipher in codes ancient.

A language that needs no words.

Only the smile of you to unlock the meaning.

And I know.

All the way through my body.

How you cherish me.

And you must know.

Yes, you must.

Love.

How.

I.

Cherish.

You.

 

 

 

The Disruption of Love

Astonishing this renaming of myself.

As the magic man comes to me.

Leading me.

Leaning into me.

Learning me this new language of passion.

Fledgling on this path of unknown sometimes I startle.

A deer in the woods.

A flock of starlings rise in my heart.

Murmurations of love painted across the sunset sky.

Your face in the light.

Center of my attention.

The planes of your cheekbones.

The shape of your eyes.

Curvature of your lips, the smiles dancing there

A minuet of Mozart.

Slain back, surrendered to you, all distance

Drops, shatters, soft, like petals falling from the shaking boughs

Of apple trees.

Caught and cradled.

Through sunrise.

Moonset.

Feathering kisses across my face

Summoning me into velvet darkness where

Stars splatter with spangles of bright desire.

Astonished by you.

Conjured,

I lay myself before you.

Heart splayed and open

Beating like the wings of the birds flashing against

That burgeoning dusk.

Creating patterns of mystery I never

Knew

Abided within me.

I rise then.

Kissed alive.

Anew.

Graced.

 

By you.

It’s Awful Nice

To be missed.

It was obvious that I was missed.

I got so much love at my job today, it really was something else.

From the appreciations I got from the mom for the work I do, to the little ladybug running to meet me when I picked her up at school, to the oldest boy leaning his head against me and just hugging me, and letting me kiss him.

The little girl couldn’t stop kissing me and telling me how much she missed me and that she wasn’t ever going to be mean to me and that she loved me, very much, very, very, very much.

Nothing like having a warm, soft paw in your hand all day and soft sweet kisses–when we walked home from school she insisted on holding my hand the entire time and would kiss it constantly.

I was utterly charmed.

It was a long day, but I mustered through and probably drank a lot more coffee than I should, but I made it and actually don’t feel too jet lagged at this point.

I still woke up too early, and found myself so sacked out last night that I could barely check in with the folks I needed to check in with, but I did get a good night’s sleep.

And a good hot shower in the morning, lots of writing, big mug of coffee and getting myself organized before heading out to work helped a lot.

I also got a few errands run before I headed into work, including mailing my mom a package–I hadn’t been able to send out her Mother’s Day gift before I left for Paris.

I got to get lots of face to face time with the mom at work and we talked about summer schedule, the kids schedule, work, travel, and my internship, which starts on Thursday.

I will have a busy week, but I also will have Monday off next week, it’s a holiday, and I’m super happy for that.

I know that I am busy, that life will be busy, that life is full, but there are moments of reprieve, idyllic hours when the unexpected and sweet happens, the hand in mine, the press of lips against my skin, a kiss bestowed upon me, a sowing of love.

“Carmen, you need to sleep over soon!” She said to me, tugging my hand again and again, “and bring me more stickers.”

I laughed.

I also made them dinner and the kids got their favorites, alphabet pasta with cheese and butter for the oldest boy and alphabet pasta soup with carrots in chicken broth for the little lady, I bounced about while the mom ate–slightly fancier stuff for the parent dinner–sautéed asparagus in olive oil and garlic, bechamel sauce over grass-fed seared beef, quinoa pasta with butter and parmesan, mixed greens salad–with the baby, who’s bright happy smile met mine many times today, I felt he recognized me and it was wonderful to get his big smiles.

It’s nice to be appreciated and I felt that in spades today.

When I went to leave the little lady jumped up from her chair at the dinner table and hollered “NO!”

But I told her I would be back soon and that we would have more adventures tomorrow and she can’t wait, “cuz I have a dentist appointment tomorrow!”

Dentists are a lot more fun then they were in my day.

I have a dentist appointment on Saturday, I am not nearly as excited as my charge, not by far, of course I’ll be getting novocaine shot into my gum line instead of a big red balloon, so that may be why.

And while my little charge was chatting excitedly, her older brother said, soft and under his breath, but audible to me, “but I get you when she’s at the dentist, we get to be all by ourselves, I get you for me.”

Aw!

Love buttons.

I felt adored today.

Not just appreciated, but adored and that is a damn fine way to feel, especially at work.

I am grateful for the family and all that I get to do for them.

It’s so much easier to be present and available when I am appreciated and then I just want to do an even better job.

That’s how I am.

It makes having to work full-time while I am doing school and my internship and all the other things, so much easier.

It really does.

It’s work, don’t get me wrong, I do a lot for the family, but it is also a joy and I am beyond grateful for them.

And for my life.

It is rich and varied and so full of unexpected happiness I am constantly surprised and joyful in my person.

In my tired, still slightly jet lagged but yes, very happy, person.

I think I’ll have the jet lagged licked by tomorrow, Thursday at the latest.

I have an appreciation for it though, everything seems dreamy and surreal, the fog, the soft coolness on my skin, the music I have been listening to, the hot showers and the warmth of my bed when I crawl into it at night.

Dreamy and swaddled in.

Softened and bending.

Surrendered to the woozy and the swoon.

The drowsed light and the refracted love notes of jazz.

Cocooning me in succor.

Baby, sweet baby.

Slumber drifting on the swell of moon rising in the night.

Ghostships of desire.

Latent and laden.

Tipsy in the cusp of dawn.

The cashmere softness of pre-sunrise and smoked grey of early morning.

Plush with promise.

And.

Smocked velvet kisses.