Portrait

Myself from behind, from behind, seated,
a nude, near nude, the sepia of dusk,
dusk, surrounding the bed like a cloud.
A cloud around the vulnerable nape
(impossible to tell how old the face).
The hidden face; the naked back
(impossible to say this woman has had a child).

I peeled away pale camouflage.
I have been through a bone-twisting battle.
This is the silence that straightens me, that comes after.

Ten-Year Reunion

If I'd sent an invitation, it could have said,
Dear loss: For ten years you've hovered above me,
tethered by these two twisted filaments of love and guilt,
voiceless as a cloud shifting into the faded blue.
I take the knife from our patient midwife and cut you
loose now, loss. Move on if you must.
I'll never be any readier.

But if you'd read that, you would have remained there floating
in your truth, binding your heart to me stronger.

It could have read,
Dear loss: Life is a dream that seems real as rocks
because we train our attention on it masterfully.
We come here, spirits slipping into flesh, to dream together
one collective dream.

The dream is real, and it matters, like all dreams.
You can break down the false barriers. Waking and dreaming
and waiting: life weaves one seamless cloth of dream.

Love is like this too. I train my attention on you.
Love is energy, like everything else. You let it go
wherever it will go. Love is repetition.