to forget

to forget

the drive’s become less
noticeable with the grass
brown      ing in a way
less enchanting than the trees
or you     watching
they blur in greens
speed now past them
in orange      attempts to forge…

you liked this drive
this highway quieter
now in this season
than when you’d switch stations
to have songs match
climate      anticipating seasons
and this one come

the crispness of cold
a passenger’s seat with only
the driver’s warm
by thoughts and       you
somewhere in a city
stationary looking
out a window colors turn

i drive faster by them
to forge…

to avoid remembering

Missing Keys

Missing Keys

The thing I remember most
About loving you was the email
Everyday a page
Sometimes twice
I’d think of what you looked like under your scarf
That beautiful black
I remembered when we were
Friends, mostly as children, and foolish young
Adults and grown men and women we are now

And I find           I think
Too much
Of you still and wonder if
You had kept those emails and read them
At your office in your hijab
Or at home where I like to think of you
At mine, without a barrier
Mysterious to other men
But not me with
The keys I’d stolen
for many years with each letter
pressed I left clues and now
I look for places to leave them for you
Keys and clues to remind
You of the things you read the most
When I for years
Had emailed you.

a lecture

a lecture

there are subtleties a man
must learn      to differentiate between
the values of a
society are pillars and
between those
truths and people unaware
their behavior     
greater constants than mathematics
only slighter
than affection          elusive as an atom
and noticed under
the microscope
of tender unnoticed     gestures like
      the removal of
      an eye lash
      from a cheek
      the blush in
      brown skin and moisture
      of lips when
      helping with the dishes
      drying
      the pretense of
      emotional distance and
      the sound of a swallow
      singing at the end
      of a sentence
      and this     gap

a pause in thought.

there’s a science to  be made
of this
a study of soft
hands and lips     
close       nights in a laboratory
of sheets      
askew with writing
and writhing to
make a sense of why we try to learn
love      what we already
inherently know