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Light Year

I have been going through the vats of old letters I have in my closet. Yes, I am a letter hoarder. It is a problem. If someone takes the time to write down anything on paper, I keep it. There is something about a letter that registers deeply within me. Sometimes I dream that people one hundred years from now will come across these letters and think...They could really think anything at all about me one hundred years down the line and I'd be more than satisfied!

During my readings, I came across something I had written. It is a poem written to my beloved Tom the year before we were married. I am daring to publish it here because, well, I like it! And that is rare for me to say of my poetry. I hope you enjoy it as well.

Light Year

If you sing me that night
with its crickets and stars,
its machine-sprinkled water
a mist curtaining Mars
from my sight as I sit
wishing nothing - 
Maybe something - 
Is a kiss coming?

That song might make me
sing inside like the river
darting West to East
through green into shivering
dashing crystal droplets
cut apart
by the rocks.
Each one is a mirror

Looking deep into stone
crevices, jet black.
My I looks at you 
and black eyes stare back.
I start - 
And more starts
than in a light year I could think.

How does a mountain turn to letters
and letters into you
tumbling to my arms
akimbo through
hazy grays with bristling chin,
limbs stretched, 
me beneath,
laughing and looking up?

It eats me up inside,
like the sushi-snack day,
when I watch your curls shine
and hear your mouth say,
Come here!
I'm no coward
with my polaroid of your hurricane.

I'll come to you, there,
if you promise me striving.
If we'll jump to forgive
every time and keep living
our everything different
towards Everything Same, 
then Munich and Paris can have only
one name.



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