Discretionary Love

i can catch your voice. i can catch the velvety warmth, piercing coldness , rosy thorns, and blurry dawn in your voice. i can catch

1. From my window, I watch the birds. I watch tiny blossoms open on my Australian bottle brush tree, then frizzle into confetti and blow

When my mother told fifteen year old me I should write letters to our neighbor’s son who was away in Vietnam I somehow missed hearing

On the rough days when I can’t make it When the world is crushing my shoulders and I can’t breath He opens up His chest

I still hear the you in me – in how I pause before punchlines; crush my knuckles like bubble wrap when I’m embarrassed; stab my

my mother’s face is a calla lily, blooming against sunshine. her heart a thick / molasses dripping off a spoon into her children’s waiting mouths

In you there are no tomorrows parading before me their long lists of obligations, their to dos and should dos and absolutely must dos that

A flak of luck, as I think of it, the hap in happiness neutral as a flake of schist. Of snow. Of skin. Whatever time

for Light   An embodiment of God’s serenade that fireflies in the dread of darkness. She is that constellation — God’s calligraphy of beauty on

I dreamt about you (again) last night. Your hair had grown and you were wearing your glasses. The bottomless mirrors of your eyes stared through

It was the best night of the worst year. That is how I still think of it: Perhaps that was an overestimation on my part.

she drinks from a cup of hearts a forgotten Valentine bought years before when our marriage was fresh she smiles through wine-soaked lips her eyes