(Conceptual) Relationship

Finally

Winter pass

Mood rise

All feel brighter

Actions move faster

I step up to clean out the messy life

You emerge from the cold thick white

And we finally

say hi

Court

Wait by the phone for that call

back and forth, tug and pull

A mind game worth playing

If it takes two to tango

I wonder who takes the lead

Stand face to face

Hands reach out, fingertips touch

Sparks brighten their faces as if lit by

candles on a dinner table, silver screen in a theater,

full moon in the sky

Smiles

Gazes

Whispers

Kisses

Promises

Until a commitment is

proposed

Love Letter—An Exercise for Romance

Right—

“To try to write love is to confront the muck of language: that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little, excessive and impoverished”

says Roland Barthes

As I try to articulate, daydream, plan—

The greatest love story of our own time

Would you like to co-write it?

The wedding party will be held at the Riverside Café

The song for the first dance will be the Beatles’ I will

The flowers will be cherry blossoms, irises, lilies, lilacs, lotuses

The Champagne will be Moet Chandon

The ring will be Tiffany’s & Co.

We will stand in front of the glass windows radiating Manhattan skyline

We will adjust each other’s collars from guests’ inadvertent bumping

We will kiss our back palms and exchange “Let’s get outta here” glances

“We two, how long we were fool’d, now transmuted,

We swiftly escape as Nature escapes,” says Walt Whitman

Speech will still be delivered and oohs and ahs will still rise

One day

The words will be heard, but—

“The perfect will be the enemy of the good”

says the anonymous

For now, it is an exercise for romance

And I hope it will be a romance from exercise

XX, Yours

Girlfriend, Defined

She lit a cigarette, serene as white smoke

The relationship was defined as Affair—at this point

No sunglasses; nor trench coat

Her face carried no lines of discomfort or guilt—the fittest composure for a gambler

No make-up either; her skin absorbed every particle of sooty loot without rash outbreak

The only recognition given away on this affair was her hair

Blossoming, Cascading, Erupting, Radiating—the hair’s in love definitely

“He was a boor,” she said

The shameless tyrant approached, demanded, invaded, declared victory

She succumbed as his colony, a door away from his motherland

shared with his wife whose sovereignty stopped outside her front door

“It’s all physical,” she explained

with no qualms, clichés of feeling connected through body heat

Promise minimally kept/Schedule randomly selected/Code delicately planned/Hint deliberately dropped

Emotions were not defined—at this point

Secrecy should dress both of them somewhat decently,

with certain definition

Rough Love

Doors opened

Steps crafted

Under the veil she wanted everything in control

Father witnessed

Vows exchanged

She committed with a band of inscription—

Forever, from March 1999

Later she reminisced

how the petals twirled along red carpet aisle

the light danced under arch of epoch

broken glass twinkled as from edges of a diamond

hymns of gaiety flew

in ecstasy

Years went by

Sweet dreams subsided

Ordinary chores wore off the uniqueness of

staying together

Perpetual familiarity toughened the core of

accepting each other

until it cracked

Later she remembered

How the dainty porcelains thrown smashed windows

let go ferocious flood of light drowning the 10 feet high loft ceiling

with the unbearable confession cut deep scabs bleeding

An end treaty signed

in numb

How come—

the ceremony of moment could be this holy

the dissolution of later this ugly