Into Light
Passing into light
From darkened shadows of trees
Take your flight, sweet dove
by Karen Sullivan
Form: Haiku
#5
I wake up and go to check up
on the older female, as I know
all too well when she has to be
up and walking towards the
kitchen, then I can eat.
It’s a thing, I don’t eat alone,
even when the bowl is full,
I need the company of a
human.
Most days are pretty much
the same, they get up, they
leave and they come back,
usually at the same time,
and as the other four-legged one
is old, she is no longer the
messenger of the keys dangling
outside the door, my hearing
is much better as I am
still young.
And yet today, they have taken
them out again, the soft boxes
the ones that are not always
open and often just
too large for me.
They are moving objects
that take up space in
the soft box, and I hurry
to climb in, to take up
my space, that should
rightfully belong to me.
They think that I don’t know,
but I see they are leaving.
I know they will be back, but
I just really want to
go with them.
Dramatis Personae
You open the door with no inkling of what’s to come;
Today is the day I end it;
We had a fun run, but it’s over, don’t you see?
And this is going to be icky;
Because you won’t cooperate;
Sitting there with your green eyes;
Crying like a bitch;
Why can’t you just yell at me like I want you to do?
Then I could yell back, leave and slam the door;
It would be the easiest thing for both of us;
Instead, I have to sit here and listen to your weak shit as you blubber in my lap;
And while I hold you I have to look around the room;
I see the reminders of the times we fucked like beasts;
I see where you held me as I told you about the woman I loved who left with tears in my eyes;
And where, after I apologized taking up our date with that story, you just smiled and said “This is the work”;
No, bitch, this is the work
Because now I have to leave.
-30-
Divine Mind
A crack in the sky
lets sunlight seep
through the logy muck
of morning and mourning
making this one moment
peculiar, enough to reach
up and tear open
the heart of the orb
that sustains us
while pulling us under
into the distant keening.
I. L. Y.
Maybe it was out of my loneliness?
Or the phantom he left behind, ever day?
You were here when I needed most
A face that smiled when I smiled
Got all nervous and shy, whenever our eyes met for longer than a pause
Or just a single breath
That’s what drew me into you, I think.
That and our rapport that could segue from nothing more than a look
My look, as I walked past on my day to day routine
While you sipped your coffee and smoked
Staring back over the rim of your cup and your glasses.
A smile. My smile.
All for me.
I remember the first time we kissed
At the pier, in the dead of winter
Freezing and shaking
Though I shook for more than just the cold
Anticipation?
I still have that shell you found
The one you searched for
Just for me.
The inscription you wrote
It’s still there
Faded
But still there.
As am I.
Man on the Street with a White-Tipped Cane
(an ovillejo)
I cannot see these blues.
Do you?
The sky’s an empty sea.
See me
with all that I hold dear
sitting here?
A truth I must hold near:
My light still shines,
but you may be blind.
Do you see me sitting here?
Hour Five
You look at me with your young eyes
and you do not see me.
You see a crippled old man
hobbling over a walking frame
legs bowed from Polio’s kiss
spine curved from Gravity’s cruelty.
You watch me manoeuvre that frame
from road to path via gutter
and wonder if I’ll fall backwards.
Well, so do I. Every day.
Still, the perils of an old, broken body
cannot stop the muscles controlling my joy
and if you look closely, beyond the liberal creases
of the years I’ve lived
up through the crevices of endurance…
if you guide your gaze to my eyes
you will see they are still dancing.
Oh yes, they will never stop dancing.
The Mother Age – 5/24
my mother- her face ages
from cigarettes and smiles
middle-life women call them laugh lines
in bitter humor
on their eleventh anniversary of their twenty-ninth birthday
and with age, comes tears
a sort of sopping heaviness,
leaking out like a dirty mop over the edges of youth
filling the cracks that the smiles made-
ruining the edges of the pictures
each year, another pound for the heart to carry
in a life anchor
no wonder she looks so tired.
she’s tied like a ship by the years,
slowly sinking,
bated her breaths
In his eyes
I see her in the light
She refuses to see herself
A beautiful masterpiece
Her flaws
Become the magnifying
Glass
To the infinite possibilities
Of her being
When she looks in the mirror
I see that she’s staring
Right
Back at me
Our eyes lock
Through me
She gets a glimpse
Of her reflection
She finally recognizes
The magic
She holds inside
She is my
Counterpart
My universe
Somewhere lost
In our space
-Angelica Villarruel