Roses
 
 
We were running late (as usual).
And she stopped,
distracted (as usual),
by the bloom of a pink rose.
“C’mon!” I said. “It’s time to go.”
But she ignored me, lifting
the rose to her nose.
It wasn’t time to go.
She was doing exactly what
all of us should do more often.
Somehow, she had figured that out.
But I had not.





Time Traveler


I time traveled today.
Back to the places
of my youth.
Back to where it all began.
My birth.
My childhood.
My adulthood.
And then my marriage.
Everything looked the same.
My birthplace still looked the same.
The place we called ours even more so.
I felt as though I could walk 
right up to the doorstep of
my childhood home.
And see my childhood self.
Watching The Flintstones,
Or perhaps cascading down a Slip ‘n Slide
in the backyard.
That I could show up on the doorstep
of our honeymoon.
So in love.
Watching TV.
Making love.
And then I realized that I can’t.
That I hadn’t time-traveled.
That everything looks exactly the same…
But nothing is the same.
I want to take comfort in everything being the same.
But I’m not.
We’re not.
In the constancy of things.
A reminder that something can last forever.
But all I see is that the past survived.
But present tense and future did not.




 
Holiday House
 

Today, I passed by the house,
where we spent the holidays.
Everything looked the same.
But nothing felt the same.
(Nothing ever does).
After I passed the house,
I turned the corner
and pulled into
the parking lot
of your new home –
a cell of cinderblocks,
the scent of fresh urine,
left unattended by aides.
A nest of neglect.
a living ghost of
the woman who
carved countless
Thanksgiving turkeys
and Christmas hams
that you fed us,
so long ago,
in the holidays
of our youth.




 
Reminiscence


It's hard to reminisce about things 
you thought would last forever.

Like us.
 
The one reason why I left you
is overshadowed by the million reasons 
why I shouldn't have.
 
If things were so bad,
then why can I only remember the good?





Dream Poem


I wrote a poem
on a page inside my mind,
as I lay awake,
on another sleepless night,
awaiting the Sandman
once again.
But I didn’t get up
to write it down.
And it’s gone.
Just like you.
And just like me.