The Window

thank you. 🙏🏻

and here’s one from me.

(revised) :

The Window

This was our movie screen,

this window

it was still winter then

the trees bare the sky low slung

like the blanket hanging on the floor

like your jeans on your hipbones

amaryllis still on the windowsill since christmas

the same red as the woodpecker’s head,

the same scarlet as the cardinal.

These are our guys,

Big Papi & the Cardinal we called

‘His Eminence.’

the birds have cake for breakfast,

like we used to

Big Papi likes to take his time

with the seeds

turning his head to make sure everything’s just the way he likes it,

cool (like

someonei know)

leaving a corner for the cardinal,

having a little cake, too, don’t mind if i do,

these sunflower seeds delicious,

a little petit dejeuner

(or ‘petty doo zhe nay,’ you’d say, like you said ‘Reverie by DOO boose EE’

They've had their fill and now it’s time to do reconnaissance, those two,

their slightly drab,

more hesitant mates waiting for cake

on the speckled ledge

and in all their scarlet glory

the big guys shoulder away the sparrows

who are

dancing in anxious

chitters on the roof

impatient for their turn too.

See? that’s the wife i’d say,

the cardinal’s wife, look at her,

she’s actually more brown than red,

is she trying to blend with the sparrows (‘peasants!’)

just some red tint around the edges,

a tinge is all she gets.

she hangs back & waits for him to give her the nod

a little mouse-y for a bird, i say

(drily. airily? as i pour an arc of coffee)

and the woodpecker’s wife?

she’s pretty much just

black & white

like an old movie,

like spectator pumps, like a noir grandma

some kind of elegant i guess, but she’s got no flash—

you laugh.

as if.

as if you would ever allow me to identify with the drab wife.

me with my adornments and radiance. made so by love. we laugh.

Look. you say.

he’s clearing the way

for her

so she can have her breakfast

in peace,

read the paper,

write some poems

on ribbons

see? he’s distracting the predators, the hangers on,

driving them away

so she can be safe

to do her thing,

you say, see?

she’s going back to the nest

for cigarettes and coffee,

omaybe put the music on.

so this is my thing, now?

this is the time I wanted, I guess, to myself.

without the hospice nurses on their ipads,

without the juggling drugs & numbers,

the lights in the night,

beyond the valley of

it’s always 3 o clock in the mornin.

this is the peace?

it’s solo??

our bed. our birds.

our it’s a wonderful life?

after all

you’ll be happy to hear

that crepe myrtle tree we planted

so many years ago is now

fully lush

and green outside our window.

It fills the entire frame

with green leaves in the breeze

though as you know,

it’s a late bloomer,

not til end of the summer when

its beauty reminds us

what we will lose

what’s coming next,

one last glimpse of

wistful & lovely before leaving

like our daughter going back home after a visit

she said we should’ve listened to the crickets

before the Fall,

the crickets know when it’s time to go.

Yesterday she slept over,

she put on your old riding boots

and went out in the rain

with a butter knife

to loosen some dirt

in the cracks

in the blacktop out back

so she could plant some

wildflower seeds in the crevices

make it like an english country garden

in the city

maybe some lavender and

wild blue

flax in the crevasse

or gold in the cracks

like my kintsugi heart

and

poppies

(poppies, always in the Wicked Witch voice)

we were

planting morning glory seeds

in the rain

and other stories.

in dreams we carry on

then later, last night

never felt like i was missing out on anything,

runnin around the world with you

the magnificent life we had

until i had to do this, this,

which is missing you.

let’s see how this Spring goes.

if we get to have a little more of this

relative mildness,

not that

beginning as it’s ending

before it’s

hot time summer in the city and there’s no one

to go to the beach with.

til then i’m here in this day

this rainy day and monday straight through sunday

which it is,

not walking around

in a constant state of yearning

anymore

you turned me on

to the blues

you turned me on

periodt.

and thank you baby

too bad the healing we prayed for meant the deal we made we had to

give up your body

your perfect body was done,

we just had to let it go

surrender dorothy,

old rockin chair,

mister ambulance man,

and

I’m just and we are

poor little angel child

still doing this

to make you smile