I. 

We don’t have air conditioning
or much in the way of a television
We sit cross legged, yours over mine, on the pasty linoleum
listening to the radio spit crackled news and bits.
I sip your lukewarm tea, caffeine free
we talk of ventures, taxes, life’s beauties…

I wake in the mornings
your hand breaches the blanket
stretching I take it.
You softly exhale
breathing softer still
lips a cursive smile,
forget a picture
mentally a fixture
nothing will compare.

She screams when I come up behind her
turns in fury then laughs uncontrollably.
Hums as she glides through quiet times
Eyes ablaze when her mind’s alive
Dances at shows, sings songs no one else knows.
A poet’s disease, she writes in her dreams
wakes with another
idea that I’ll cover
to sing as she falls to sleep. 

I write songs for you
with lyrics too
singing off key
reactions of you reacting to me
absorbing it - unlocking this
smiling as each note’s missed.
You ask me to sing that song again,
the lullaby I played one month after we met,
“Candlelight, wash away,
dream through night of dreams we stay
grey together, frayed with age,
reverbs of this lullaby
resonate.”

II. 

It was 8PM, Tuesday
Our apartment vibrating with music.
Instead of jazz, you played a quest that got that
I listened, walking to the rhythm
though the hallway to the kitchen.
You sat in your position
legs resting on the other chair
hair in a ponytail
skin fair
eyes wide open
That stare.
There was good news in the air. 

I kneeled down beside you
brushed your lips
whiffed lilac fragrance
gave you a kiss.
Your fingers started tapping
a smile started cracking
playing piano on your torso
as the chorus came in.
Right then I knew, 
we were having our first kid.

III. 

There were children.
Beautifully terrible children,
rugrats, runts, rapscallions, 
smiling, upset, and those hormones.
The fights came and went
usually your mom and Steph
while Keira read the paper, 
and Jacob spent his teenage years
abandoning reason but his heart was there.
We grew from each other
no one more than their mother
whose capacity for love was unending
so far from what should be expected. 
She said the moments of parenthood
were baked into classrooms, dining tables, casseroles and carpools,
but the memories that stayed
were the stencils we shaped,
the kids cut it their own way
sprayed the graffiti and pulled it away. 
Teenage dried over adolescent paint
a portrait of our family
that no other artist could make
where only we could relate.

IV.

Each decade
your hand gets colder,
I get slower
my body aches
like a perpetual hangover.
We grow older
sunsets on our shoulders
when suddenly  
cancer shakes our core.

It took ten months
in beige chairs
barely leather, we sat there
hand in hand
tracing lines
vines of emaciated blood vessels
versions of us in disrepair.
You pointed to one that faded
asked how I would survive
if you didn’t make it.
Silence came about
before I could speak out.
You said,
I want you to sing to me,
my lullaby before you sleep.
I’ll always be there,
humming peacefully.

She passed
and I learned
to wake
without her hand’s embrace.
To empty space.

∞

Our grandsons
stand strong
crashing through obstacles
minds to conquer
confidence to charge on.

Our granddaughter
is an explorer
whistling as she climbs trees
dropping her glasses
smiling in make believe
these moments barely seen
treasured by me.

Our children watch, 
understanding who I see.

I go to their beds
recite different versions
of fables and tuck them in.
Eyes flickering, faltering
their minds like a battery
sucked and spent.

I retire to my bedside
grabbing the guitar at my feet
sing the song I’ve been playing
the past half century.

My door slowly opens
Lucy pokes her head in
says she dreamed she heard
trees swinging in the wind.
Bifocals elsewhere, she squints
ambles to my bedside,
climbs right in. 
I start playing again,
softly her eyelids dip,
she lays next to me, 
lips split,
faintly humming.

It's raining petals
a spectacle overhead.
Red droplets
keep dotting my skin.
An unannounced alarm is
ringing and disarming
my ears don't hear a thing.

The sight of me
or I guess what I think a painting would see:
Triangular hills overtop asymmetric minty fields
a broken sun beaten to orange peel wishing its yellow healed
clouds covered in milky gray
creamy edges layered in paint,
a crumbled house spilt to gravel
above the fray awash in its past turmoil.
All the background to the main stage:
There’s an incision 
that divides the fields 
messy brushes of splintered greens, a crater underneath
empty but gasping in shades of burgundy.
The entire landscape
is splattered and dripped
in scarlet pink.
There’s a figure
narrow like a pencil
double lined and bolded in ink
one line a bit longer
a hash mark covers its black heart.
At first it’s hard to notice because the figure’s quiet in the corner
but the more you look the less eyes wander
the figure stares
lying in disrepair,
a witness to colors.

I see colors
everywhere.

Removed of a boot
an appendage, a foot
I'm alive, I say
pale-faced afraid
seeping solace
in the seconds
of my eulogy.

Before the rush ins
adrenaline crushing
soul sucking destruction,
I was a father.
The mother
my lover, infinity and cover,
suffering sleepless nights to day
wondering when inevitable fate
would witness my soul escape.
Her portrait - 
olive eyes I worship
watching lives and warships
blast in place -
hovers my chest 
1” x 1” 
swaying on a chain 
begging the beats to remain.
Slowly now,
it lays 
on my sternum she waits.

It's raining metal
the world's Geppeto
my leg another place
the petals feather my face.
I close my eyes
picture a painting
and drift away.

I remember when you were walking away 
the trains labored to keep time
The tracks were frozen
and my heart kept pace.
12:30 
as you walked underneath  
the clock overhead
pointing away.

Your strides always fell behind mine
I’d slow down as you held me back in line
and whispered to leave the rush and keep the time. 

We got here
because of your hatred of fear.
That child who broke your heart
who cheated and smeared the entrails
in front of you to hear:
Her name was Jane.

She remained
above our surface
No matter the dive 
deep inside, below whatever kept that alive
we always came back for air.

Whatever I shaped
you pushed and pushed away
the feelings of her name, his name.
Your worry lines narrated times
of your past present in the future,
never trusting a being again.
My hope, over many months as colors changed, 
was pictured in frames of different days
if you had never met him, a separate physical plane,
where we grew to walk in time.

I think you trusted him 
with every speck and freckle,
dime and nickel,
tangible, intangible.
Trust is a gesture that leaves us
and empowers the others hold, thus 
we become one, vulnerable 
to be crushed, faithful
to be forever loved.
I held but felt
the former had its say
for no more gestures would be made. 
There’s only so much blood the heart will bleed
till its worn and withered away.

Years later,
I wrote you a letter
that remains unanswered,
and I still wonder if you feel the same.
I dream sometimes we’re still entwined
after getting through what we had to
and you became
you,
whole and true,
knowing how much I loved you. 

Months before we met,
I saw you
in that floral print
to your knees it went
as your little Converse kicks
scuffed up the dance floor.
Guy after guy approached,
you smiled,
shook your head no,
and danced alone.

It came to my attention
one day
so late.
Over Irish Coffee -
heavy cream, whiskey,
sugar cubes, and company.
The name I have,
The name I'll keep,  
may end with me.

These talks of kings and queens,
Lineage releasing despair
for a child to walk with a sword, to speak
spreading seas, birds and bees.
So it was written.
Our only deed.

Yet days wandered to years
as time disregarded love
and rambunctiousness wrestled and wronged
the avenues we could have called home.
Because why grow up as my stubble grows thick?

Memories remain,
callouses harden from the same, the same,
and I can't remember
a day, a November,
that I wasn't alone
wrapped in ecstasy of you.
Our permanence -
etched lines of physical signs -
only stenciled.
And bruises always fade. 

If ever the rust of perception
will clear,
the beating heart in this study
will bear
not just a name, or a poem on names,
but a reason to give in.

And the grin of a doting father
will replace the temporary harbors
dancing like pieces of a cookie cracked
whose fortune read exactly as dreamt.

And I sip and think of kings and queens.

There's a tree outside
whose bark's tough hide
has seen winter whither lesser trees,
summers parch lesser beings,
and the spoiled crabgrass scream,
but the tree has outlived these misgivings
to bear the brunt and toil,
see both beautiful and soiled,
and relay these lessons, these morals
to give its branches more
than Spring's shining store.

And here it stands
in the wide expanse
with its branching reaching far
to be just like the tree.
And if the tree could know
the effect of its hold, 
of the nutrients sowed,
its long embrace and let go
for the branches to thrive solo
shaking off the misery and cold
and exploding with beautiful leaves of its own.
Well, let's hope the tree has always known. 

And the branches' leaves will shed
from the burgundy to red
and whisper until the ground
that it learned a thing or two.
Age will cultivate
as rainfall alleviates
the circle of leaf, life, limb, and fate.
For the branches will grow
singing to and fro
to the tree whistling in the wind. 

There's a tree outside
whose bark's tough hide
mirror the roots that run so deep.
There's a tree outside
of heart and life
whose trunk will never cease to be.
And this tree outside - 
despite the shifts in time
and different street name signs -
will forever be ours to keep. 
And forever ours to see. 

The pillars upon this earth we’ve built
solidify and modify to hold our weighty ways.
And the tears we sweat,
drip by drip,
fuel the ocean’s sway.
And those songs we sing
blow the time in sync
cascading through our memories,
building these pillars
brick by brick.

The pillars grow larger, straighter
and those cracks still show,
but we’d never paint them over,
those badges of honor
remind the true tests we’ve known.

And soon we’ll be standing on top
labeling stars,
laughing at the little people
inconsequentials conquered thus far.
And I’ll always stand
weightless with my mind at ease
knowing you were the reason,
the base and the mortar,
that’ll leave my dying days
days in peace.

And you’ll always be there
standing right next to me.
You’ll be standing next to me,
You’ll be standing next to me.
You’ll be standing next to me...

Killed in
  Action:

             The steps thunder like a stallion
             The final destination is reached
             The gun is drawn. 

Killed in
  Action:

             The boy right out of high school
             The man right out of Dresden
             The boy's clip is empty.
             He raises his hands to the Heavens
             The man's gun is loaded
             He raises it to his shoulder.

Killed in
  Action:

             Desperation leaks from his salty sweat
             A human caught in the headlights
             A boy caught in a noose.

Killed in
  Action:

             A boy who knew no love
             A boy who lived no life
             A boy who was only that. 

Killed in
   Innocence:

            The shell flies out
            The boy falls down
            A face forgotten.
            A life never told.