Five-letter Words (or Maybe, Never, Early)
i. ***** (or maybe)
You smelled like apples
Left too long on a summer table,
Or maybe mangoes
In a field long-forgotten.
When you stepped,
Shower-fresh,
From a cocoon of steam
You smelled like
Bottled sun,
Manufactured female.
But most of all deceptively
You smelled
Of possibility.
ii. ----- (or never)
We run in circles, you and I
As children who, having found themselves
A playground,
Allow the hours to march swiftly by as soldiers
As they play
A silent game of hide and seek
Scraping knees,
Bruising elbows
Against the secret brambles.
How to find you?
Darkness falls.
We cannot be children forever.
iii. _ _ _ _ _ (or early)
Behold this weary traveler
Who knows the insides of train stations
Of far away places,
Who has a close acquaintance
With the passing clouds.
Her bags are heavy with the dust
Collected from Madrid and Costa Rica.
She is browned from her exposure
To the unkind suns of all the tropics
Where she was never welcome for very long
Chasing ghosts
Leaning against doorways
Peering through the windowpanes
Of promises.
She will not bother you
And she makes a decent sandwich,
And is good at choosing drapes
And all the fripperies
Of an unnecessary life.
Oh will you not please
Let her in, let her in.
5.18
22 May 2006
You smelled like apples
Left too long on a summer table,
Or maybe mangoes
In a field long-forgotten.
When you stepped,
Shower-fresh,
From a cocoon of steam
You smelled like
Bottled sun,
Manufactured female.
But most of all deceptively
You smelled
Of possibility.
ii. ----- (or never)
We run in circles, you and I
As children who, having found themselves
A playground,
Allow the hours to march swiftly by as soldiers
As they play
A silent game of hide and seek
Scraping knees,
Bruising elbows
Against the secret brambles.
How to find you?
Darkness falls.
We cannot be children forever.
iii. _ _ _ _ _ (or early)
Behold this weary traveler
Who knows the insides of train stations
Of far away places,
Who has a close acquaintance
With the passing clouds.
Her bags are heavy with the dust
Collected from Madrid and Costa Rica.
She is browned from her exposure
To the unkind suns of all the tropics
Where she was never welcome for very long
Chasing ghosts
Leaning against doorways
Peering through the windowpanes
Of promises.
She will not bother you
And she makes a decent sandwich,
And is good at choosing drapes
And all the fripperies
Of an unnecessary life.
Oh will you not please
Let her in, let her in.
5.18
22 May 2006