Red

In the night she rolls against me

and I swear I can feel her spirit just below her skin,

trace elements of God working their way

down river-ways of being,

candles in paper cups

drifting towards

my black body

so in need 

of heat.

Fall of 1998

Sloshing Up The Narrows Together

Hand in hand, sticky with heat,

the swift, cool current

and moss-slick boulders playing havoc

with our sneakered feet, you giggle

as a stone gives way and you go down,

pulling me with you

into the swirling foam,

where we smile at each other,

bubbles rising all around.

I think to myself, that's how it will have to be,

a willingness to let go--

Oh, to search for the perfect footholds, that too!

--the right time to bring home flowers, 

to slip an I love you in an envelope

and slide it under the pillow--

but knowing we will surely get it wrong sometimes,

a "What's wrong?" on a day when nothing is right,

or a "We need to talk" smack down in the middle

of a David Gergen dialogue with Peter Matthiesen

--on these little slopes,

and whatever bigger boulders we encounter,

we will go down into the troubled water hand in hand

full of giddy anticipation of rising up again

into the perfect sunlight,

you and me together

forever in love.

                              September 1997