My Goel

You pulled me to You,
up out of the dusty road.
The blood and sweat and tears
mixing with dust
upon my sunburnt skin
did not deter You.
You knew what You would do.

You covered me with fine silk
that rippled down over my newly-washed curves
like the words You spoke
as you bathed me—
words that washed me like water,
kind words, words of forgiveness.

Your fingers untangled the knots in my hair,
carefully separating the strands
and removing the broken hairs.
You worked slowly, purposefully,
mitigating any pain
by holding my head still
or holding the hair just right.
And all the while You hummed a song.

You took delight in Your work—
I heard Your smile travel up and down
the notes of the lullaby
You next put into words.
Your smile, like sunlight between the leaves of the tree,
dappled upon my cheek.
I wanted to turn to look upon Your face,
but You held me still—
there was yet more work to do.

{composed 11.3.02}
{revised 7.31.06}

love, for the future

i love you

i love you

i love you

will you love me?
not only now
when things are new
but also then …

when i scorch the soup
when i forget to iron your shirt
when it takes too long for me to choose an outfit
when i want to do nothing but nap
when i growl at incompetent drivers
when i sort laundry into greys & browns & reds & purples (not just lights and darks)
when my blood sugar is too low or too high
when i lose my eyesight
when my skin becomes unsightly everywhere
when i lose a foot or a leg
when i forget who you are …

even then?

then

come live in my heart,
in the smile in my eyes,
in the warmth of my embrace,
in the tenderness of my caress.

here you will find home,
a retreat from the crazy
busyness of the outside world.

come know that you are safe,
that you are sheltered
from the buffeting of harsh winds
of criticism,
in a bastion of belief
in who you are,
who you are becoming,
and who you can be.

come rest in the hollow
between my breasts,
above my heart, where
time
is measured
not by 140-character updates
but by
the steady beat
of my affection
for you.

It wasn't anything

It wasn’t anything
that could be spoken
or pointed to.

It hung in the air.

a vague impression of a scent
with no
source,

a feeling
with no
name.

What can be defined by the space

it doesn’t fill? One cannot assert the existence of such a thing.

but
there it was.

Perhaps it could be drawn
on black paper
in silver ink,
and the act
of drawing it
(the shape, whatever it please
the illustrator)
would be the thing itself.

Let the drawing be the interpretation made
by the grasping senses.

I’ll trace the line with a fingertip,
try
to feel the tautness,
to locate the endpoints,
to collect a few silver dustings to print
on my forehead.

I would be a devotee
of the office supply closet,
transported by the scent
of rubber cement,
saying and counting my prayers
by a paper clip chain,
solemnly exchanging
incoming for outgoing mail.
Find comfort in numerable,
tangible odds and ends,
useful and always ready,
so very organized,
unlike these elastic impressions
of you
that
stretch
out
to encompass
so many interpretations,
and then
snap
back
to admonish my folly.


written 6.2.97
revised 2.28.07

© 2007 ElenaMarie

If love were a bargain

And you weren’t supposed
to be thinking these things—
nothing charitable in this direction,
nothing to encourage a strengthening
of this strand loosely woven
between two minds
(of hearts we won’t speak).
Calling up
little-promising proofs
was supposed to require a pot
of coffee and a dozen donuts
(twelve more free with coupon—
oh if love were such a bargain—
with six you get eggroll,
but one doesn’t mean
two necessarily.
There are motions to make,
bargains to plea, evidences to show...);
and there should have been more
days of snow, more mornings
punctuated by the hiss and clank
of the radiator that left rust stains
on dirty, grey carpeting.
The landscape should
have remained
that steely-blue grey, the color of eyes
too long used to the cold.
Perhaps we could have redecorated,
added a splash of Dante red
and delineated the boundaries
of the inner sanctum, to match
the tomato sauce spilled from pizza.
But green had to begin,
and the sun could stay away no longer.
They would collaborate,
those happy fellas,
to send small hopes,
kept in enameled boxes,
up and out and up into the sky.


written 4.25.97
revised 2.28.07

© 2007 ElenaMarie

Poem for Neil

A winter of discontent
has given way to spring's
warmer shafts of light
piercing into places too long
darkened by past sorrows.
A sunny eye
turns with moist life
to softly touch dry spots,
to unfurl this soul's beauty
slowly,
so slowly
deftly,
and to cup a delicate reality
gently,
so gently,
and turn it to the light.

© 2007 ElenaMarie