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
