Winter With Emily

Emily is staying here tonight. She looks so adorable sleeping in my bed, wearing my Yankees t shirt for a night gown. The stillness takes some getting used to though. There's no movement at all, no rise and fall of the covers from the slow breathing of a sleeper, because Emily doesn't breathe. At first it freaked me out, but that was before I fell in love with her.

She's lying on her side, her hands clasped in front her almost like she's praying. My t shirt reaches almost to her knees. She looks so innocent, so much younger than her twenty five years. Or is it fifty? She died twenty five years ago, in 1982. I've asked her a few times how she died and she says she doesn't remember. I don't really believe her, but she's entitled to her secrets.

How did she know where to find me? I told her.

She came a couple of hours ago, maybe ten p.m. Casey didn't bark when she rang the bell, but when she came in he licked her hand and followed her around the house. When she sat on the sofa he lay with his head resting on her feet. He really likes her a lot.

We sat together on my bed and watched my vhs of How The Grinch Stole Christmas. She said it was her favorite, and she was overjoyed when she saw it sitting on my table. We sang along with all the songs and she recited all the lines for Cindy Lou Who, who was no more than two. She said that when she was alive it was her dream to play Cindy in the off Broadway production. I would have paid to see that.

When the dishes were washed and the animals fed I sat next to her on the bed and put my arm around her shoulder. I think I've finally gotten used to that feeling when I touch her, it's like touching an autumn wind. She looked up at me and giggled, and it sounded like wind chimes heard from so far away, under a full moon. I untied the black ribbon that held her hair back in a pony tail, took her tortoise shell glasses off and put them in the desk drawer alongside my own.

And now she's lying there, so beautiful and so still, with a smile so subtle it makes the Mona Lisa look like a clown painted on black velvet.

In a few minutes I'll turn this computer off and lie down beside her, wrap my arms around her and wait for the all clear, then kiss her goodnight.

And you want to know what the sex was like?

You're not ready for that!

November

It's cold in the cemetery tonight, and the starlight through the bare tree branches lights everything black and white. Joanne and I sitting side by side on the tombstone of a soldier who died in France in 1917, my arm is around her waist and her head is resting on my shoulder. She's wearing my sweatshirt and it's way too big for her, it goes down to her knees. I open the bottle of wine and pour a little on the grave, for the man who died in a war I never understood. I hope he can taste it wherever he is, and that it makes him happy.

I pass the bottle to Joanne and she takes a sip, passes it back to me and I drink some. It tastes like cherries and death, with just a hint of immortality. Joanne takes another sip, pulls the sweatshirt hood down and shakes out her long blonde hair. She smiles up at me and I'm getting lost in her dark red smile. We try to look deeply into each other's eyes and crack up laughing, who are we kidding? I kiss her cheek, hug her and laugh. We clasp hands and lie back on the dead soldier's stone, looking up at Orion rising in the east. We don't talk, just pass the bottle back and forth in the quiet and the dark. Sometimes it's nice to be with someone you don't have to talk to....

When the bottle is finally empty I stand up slowly, stretch and look at the moon setting in the west. I pull Joanne to her feet, hug her tightly and we both laugh again. We look down the grassy slope toward the cemetery gates, and the St. Lawrence river beyond. The waves are rolling cold deep and green, rolling east toward the Gaspe, toward Fundy. Let's walk a little, Jo. Maybe we can sober up enough to take a walk down Rue St. Denis. I bet the Cafe Iroquois is still open, we can stand in Place Jacques Cartier and sing teenage death songs while you play your guitar and the tourists drop coins in my hat.

Just don't tell your cousin, she would never get it, so why hurt her?

Halloween Again

(Everybody knows the story of the ghost hitchhiker, who appears on a lonely road and asks for a ride home. The good samaritan takes her home only to find she's disappeared and left some talisman of herself in the car for him. The story's always told by the samaritan, I wanted to look at it from the girl's point of view.)

In the back of her heart she knew she'd done this so many times before, if she could only remember when. But that wasn't coming to her, all she knew was that she was standing by the side of the road again, on top of the rise where she could see for at least a mile in each direction before the road curved off into the trees.

That same bright moon, shining through clouds like melted opals. That same ground fog, flowing between the trees. That same sparkle of dew in her blonde hair. That same road, two empty lanes of blacktop that started somewhere and ended somewhere. Those same woods, so quiet and dark.

She knew there were things she was supposed to do, so she did them, even though she didn't know why. She carefully folded her cashmere sweater and draped it over her arm. She smoothed down the pleats on her skirt, straightened her ankle socks, checked her saddle shoes for scuffs. She ran a hand thru her bangs, over her pony tail. She hoped her makeup wasn't smeared, but there was no mirror for her to check. She took a deep breath, sighed, and stepped to the edge of the road.

Random thoughts flitting like gypsy moths in her tired brain. I know my name is Sally. I know I'm sixteen. I love Jesus and I love my family. I love my boyfriend. I remember the dance at school tonight, the gym decorated like Aladdin's treasure cave. I remember kissing my boyfriend behind the bleachers, and how he got so mad when I wouldn't let him put his hand in my blouse. But then we made up and he gave me....her hand glided up and touched the class ring, on a chain around her neck. She cradled it in both hands, kissed it,  God, I love him!

But why am I out here alone on this road in the middle of the night? Where is he, why didn't he get me home? God, what's going on?

She looked down the road to the west and saw headlights moving in her direction. She shifted the sweater to her left arm, raised her right high over her head and waved, and the car slowed down as it pulled up to her. She'd never seen a car like this, big and boxy, twice the size of the Studebakers and Mercurys she remembered. But the boy driving it wasn't much older than her, maybe seventeen. She told him she lived a couple of miles down the road and he flipped open the passenger door, told her to climb in. She felt scared and shy, but his smile was so kind she trusted him. She got in and smoothed her skirt over her knees.

I just dropped my girlfriend home, he told her, then I saw you here by the side of the road. What are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere? She couldn't bring herself to tell him she had no idea, so she just thanked him for being so kind. She told him her house was the first turnoff at the bottom of the hill, half a mile up the gravel road. She sank back into the big soft bucket seat, felt the seatbelt around her waist and over her shoulder. Please Jesus, let me make it home this time!

He pulled into her driveway, showed her how to undo the seat belt. Then, before she could climb out of the car, he kissed her on the cheek. Then he stepped out of the car, walked around to the passenger door and looked inside.

Like he expected, the seat was empty except for a cashmere sweater streaked with mold. He lifted it out of the seat like it was the heart of the Buddha on a silver platter, and draped it on the doorknob of the house. He knew her mother would understand. Hell, the girl was only sixteen, even if she'd been  sixteen for more than fifty years now. He clicked his door closed and drove away as quietly as he could.

And her mother opened the door, saw the sweater, and thanked God that someone had looked out for her daughter again.

 

After The Fair

She was on my mind when the music finished up at the Pageant Wagon, and the crowd began to pack up and head for home. I took one last slow walk around the stalls at the Centercheap and the Riverside, then sat on the stone wall to have something to eat and watch the kids playing with all the new toys they'd gotten. Finally I hoisted my pack on my shoulders and strolled toward the plaza in front of the entrance to the Cloisters. I took one last look around and stepped through the gate in the wall and started down the stone stairs.

To do this is to step from one world into another. Up on the plaza the sun is shining and people are talking and singing. At the bottom of the steps is the gloom of a forest that looks the same today as it did when Hendrick Hudson sailed up this river almost four hundred years ago. If it weren't for the street lights waking up as the sun went down it could be almost any year you want it to be. There's something magical in that.

I was disappointed when I came to the first hairpin turn on the path and she wasn't there. That was where she talked to me last year, right outside the locked postern gate at the base of the foundations under the Cloisters. I actually stood and waited a few minutes, hoping she'd show up, but nothing, so I walked on down the path.

I passed the first two forks in the road where all the people who don't know the way take the wrong turns and wind up going back up the mountain, but still no sign of her. Then I started down the long slope that runs straight all the way to the ridge over the playground at the base of the mountain. About halfway down the slope is a huge rock overhang on the right side of the path. It rises about two stories over your head as you pass; a lamp post stands in the cleft where the rock was split at some time long past by some force long forgotten. The cleft goes all the way to the top of the rock where a fair size tree has taken root in the soil that collected there. Wildflowers grow here and there in cracks in the rock's face, places where you would never believe life could take hold. That was when I saw her.

Well,  I heard her first. From up on top of the rock I heard her laugh and call, "Hey, you came!" I looked up and she was standing under the tree growing in the cleft. Jeans and boots and a t shirt, she looked like Robin Hood's tomboy kid sister with her hair tied back in a long ponytail and tortoise shell glasses. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I was overjoyed to see her. I don't know how many times I'd thought of her since last year, I missed her and I don't know why. I looked up and waved and called, "Sorry, darlin', but you'll have to come down. There's no way I can make it up there!"

She skipped down the face of the rock like a thistle on the wind and stopped in front of me and swooped low in a courtly bow, then stood up and laughed at the sheer silliness of it, and the sheer joy of being here together on this lonely forest path. I bowed equally low and said in my finest Shakespearian, "Well met, good my lady!" Then we stood, a foot apart, and looked into each other's eyes.

"You know, don't you?"she asked me with a cloud of worry passing over her face. "Know what? That you're dead? Yes." She looked down at the ground and I'm sure I saw a tear fall from her eye. "How did you know?" she asked me. "Well", I said, "that fading out on the path was kind of obvious!" She blushed at that and we both laughed. "Oops, my bad!" "Hey!", I said, "that expression didn't exist when you died!" "Yeah, I know", she giggled, "but I like it so much! I heard people using it in the park."

We talked on for a while, feeling at ease as the darkness fell. Finally I held my hand out to her. Her eyes almost fell out of her head, "Jim, are you sure you want to do that? I don't know what might happen." "Neither do I, honey. Let's find out!"

I could see a million thoughts cross her mind as she stood there, her eyes always fixed on mine. At last she came to some resolution and held her hand out so slowly....

The distance closing between her hand and mine, like a ship coming home to rest after such a long voyage. At last our fingertips touched but we didn't stop there, I closed both my hands over her hers.

It was like holding the wind in your hands, a cool spring breeze off the lake when you know it may yet snow again, but there's just enough warmth in the wind to tell you that the worst is over.

By now were less than a foot apart, her hand in mine. I couldn't help it, I looked into her eyes for permission and she gave it with a wink and a smile. I leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth.

I guess our eyes closed when our lips touched, but I'm really not sure, because there were fireworks and lightning and I pulled her close to me and she stumbled as she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and we pulled each other closer and I swear I felt her body grow solid in my arms, her breasts pressed against my chest, her fingers running through my hair. Then she shuddered, pulled me tight and held on to me. "Breath!", she almost screamed, "Breath! My God, I'd forgotten what breath felt like!" She put her hand on my chest and felt my heart beating, "My God, Jim, I can hear your blood moving like a river inside you!" She was trembling so badly I gently sat her down on a boulder alongside the path.

After a long time we got up the courage to look at each other.  I sat next to her on  the boulder and put my arm around her shoulder.

"Well, why are you still here?" she asked me through the tears in her eyes.  Don't you want to go home to those girls who can still breathe?" I just wrapped my arms closer around her, held her tight. "I'm not going anywhere," I said,  "and I'll  never love them the way I love you."

The Last Night Of Summer

Manhattan Beach on the night before autumn, and I held her hand a little tighter as the sun climbed down out of the sky and touched the shore behind Ambrose Light. Just a few weeks earlier it dropped behind the Coney Island skyline and backlit the Wonder Wheel and the Cyclone in a blaze of pinks and yellows as we lay on our blanket drying off from the surf. Now we stood in the chilly sand, jeans rolled up to our knees. I wore a turtleneck and she wore the denim jacket with the embroidered dolphin on the back, leaping out of a multicolored ocean under a smiling sun. I stood a step behind her and wrapped my arms around her, rested my chin on her shoulder. She turned and kissed my cheek as the sun dipped out of sight behind Sandy Hook and the first star twinkled way out over the eastern ocean. We walked up the beach so slowly, holding hands, knowing we probably wouldn't be back here again for such a long time.

It was dark by the time we came to the old wooden footbridge across the bay and stopped to put our shoes on. Across the water the lights glittered from the restaurants and the fishing boats tied up at the piers. On Emmons Avenue the nightly parade had begun, cars cruising up and down the length of the bay like it was the main street of some prairie town. But on this side it was dark and quiet under this old maple tree. We stood there for a long time, sometimes kissing and sometimes just looking at the view as the moon rose over the bay. In the morning she would be leaving for school upstate, and our lives would never be the same again. But I swore I would never forget that night under the maple tree by the footbridge, with the lights dancing on the water and the cars cruising by with the radios playing so loud. And her hand in mine....

Marissa

She was praying with her fingers crossed, standing on the beach ankle deep in the chilly sand. Grey sweatshirt, black shorts, her sandals kicked aside looking empty, forlorn. Her face was turned to the warm pink rays of the setting sun. Her eyes were closed but she smiled from the sun's kiss on her face. In this light she looked even younger than she was. Her strawberry hair glowed incandescent in the evening light. She wore a chain around her neck with a cross, a star of David, an Om, a crescent moon and star and a triskalion hanging from it. She touched it and thought to herself, "Cover all bases!" The thought made her smile even wider.

She opened her eyes just as the sun kissed the horizon. To the west the sky was an explosion of rainbows, to the east the first stars were already twinkling. She knelt in the sand, put her hands on her thighs and bowed forward til her forehead touched the warm sand. Thank you, sun. Thank you, water. Thank you, sand. Thank you, stars. She stood up like the first blades of grass rising from the springtime earth and performed a perfect sun salute that fell into downward facing dog and rose up into first warrior. Then she stepped out of the moment of perfect silence and began to pick up her things off the beach.

God, I love her!

 

Almost September

It's the last night of August and the last full moon of summer is waning in the western sky tonight. Soon the heat will fade, soon wood smoke will drift through the sky, smelling like autumn.

I'm trying hard to enjoy it as the sun walks away to the south and the place where the water meets the sand grows cold under my feet. I want to hold on to every memory of summer, because I know how much life we'll have to live before it comes back again.

And God, I don't know if I can face another winter.

Joan On The "A" Train

I saw Joan Of Arc on the subway last night. She got on at Chambers Street, carrying a big mountain backpack and a sleeping bag. Her hair was still in that same short pageboy, and her bangs were blowing in a breeze that came from Rouen almost six hundred years ago. She even had a fleur-de-lys embroidered on the pocket of her jeans. Her eyes were still that same incredible clear shade of blue that dispelled all doubt the moment you looked deeply into them.

She caught my eye for just a second when she boarded, then she looked around the rest of the car. But it didn't matter, I knew she recognized me. The ghost of a smile crossed her face and vanished, a smile so faint and so quick that only those who knew her well would have seen it at all. I knew she was thinking the same thing as me. Hello again old friend. I missed you too.

She got off at West Fourth Street, same as me, but she went to the south end while I walked north to Eighth Street. I know she looked over her shoulder at me as we went our separate ways. And I know I'll see her again, soon. I've missed you, cherie!

It All Means Something

I've got a Japanese fan painted with two storks in a bamboo forest on the wall over my bed.

I've got your hand in mine.

I've got a brass pentagram and a copper moon, a glass star and a bronze buddhist bell hanging in my bedroom doorway.

I've got your hand in mine.

I've got a salt lamp shining softly in the corner.

I've got your hand in mine.

Life's good.

Manhattan Beach

I held your hand under green water, when the waves broke over our heads and we kissed in the cold salty gloom. Hands slipping on wet skin, teeth grazing gums, the kiss tasting of salt water and blood. Your fingernail grazed my shoulder and left a scar that still reminds me of that day, all these years later.

And when we stumbled up the beach and fell laughing on our blanket we kissed again in the sun, and the kiss tasted of sand and light. I think that was the first time in my life that I was so happy just to be me.

Just A Dream I Had Last Night

I met Donna on Montague Street yesterday and she invited me out to a movie, so how could I say no? She was wearing jeans and a white shirt and black vest, and her hair was tied back in a long red ponytail. She knows I can't resist that look!

The theatre was up by Columbus Circle, so we ate dinner at Lenge on Columbus Avenue. She had sushi and I ate veggie tempura, and we shared a fried ice cream for dessert. She'd never seen that before, it made her really happy. After dinner we held hands as we strolled through the sunset to the theatre.

It looked just like a regular theatre, red velvet seats and dim lighting, except the floor was covered in sand. Warm white beach sand, knee deep in the aisles and under the seats. I was surprised, but Donna seemed to expect it. We decided to sit in the aisle, she said it would be like watching a movie on the beach. I love that she thinks like that! We took our shoes off and pushed our feet into the warm soft sand, sitting side by side. I put my arm around her shoulder and she leaned against me as the lights dimmed and the film started.

A woman sitting by the aisle looked at us and smiled, and handed us her little boy, who was about three years old. "You need one of these!," she said, "Now you look like a real family!" I wasn't sure what to do, but I thanked her anyway. Donna took the boy on her lap and smiled like Christmas morning. He had the same deep red hair as hers. Finally she put him down in the aisle and gave him a little shovel, and he started to build a beautiful sand castle while we watched, half watching the movie and half watching him and half looking at each other.

When the film ended I picked the boy up and put him on my shoulder. I took Donna's hand and we walked up the aisle and out to the deserted street. "Donna," I said, "come home with me! I want you to meet all my friends!" She laughed and said, "Jim, you know I can't do that! You know I'm only the dream you had tonight, don't you?" I didn't want to admit it, but I knew she was right. "But what about the boy?," I asked her. She said, "Don't worry, I can take care of him by myself until you get up the nerve to come join me." I kissed her goodbye, and kissed the boy too. She looked at me hopefully and asked, "I'll see you later, right?"

Of course you will. Do you have to ask?

Governor's Island #2

The river's rolling deep and green through memories like fields of rounded stones, polished by the gentle current. The stones never move, but the river takes their stories and whispers them to the sand, to the whirlpools and the algae, to the lost anchors and the coins that lovers tossed off the ferries when they made wishes. When I stood on the deck of the ferry and looked down I could see my own life down there, spelled out in photos you only look at on cold winter nights when you're all alone.

Governor's Island

Thinking about the waves breaking on the Governor's Island rocks tonight, in the dark, with nobody there to watch them. Wondering what the lawns of Colonels' Row look like under  moonlight, empty and silent, and did the ghosts of all those soldiers and sailors enjoy the music?

All those kids blowing bubbles, all those lovers kissing, all those people singing, where once troops drilled with rifles before marching off to Gettysburg, and the Argonne, and Normandy,and Saigon, do you think it could maybe purge the earth of some of its hardness and coldness, let the sun shine more warmly there, let all those souls know that at the end there is peace and forgiveness waiting, not judgment?

I have no idea, but God, it's a hopeful thought, isn't it?

Early In The Morning

Can't face the morning light,

it's too near the end of the road.

Can't watch the stars fade,

it's too near the end of the road.

Can't watch your kids dress for school,

it's too near the end of the road.

Can't watch you climb out of my bed,

it's too near the end of the road.

Titanic Haiku

Did you see the stars

looking down as the water

closed over your head?

I Don't Know How To Help, So I'm Offering The Best I Can Think Of

Do you even hear the waves crashing on the sand beneath your window, when you sit there on a summer night, cigarette between your fingers, blowing smoke rings at the summer moon?The waves pile the sand up higher and higher, soon it will reach your window sill. Will you step out then, walking down the sand slope as light as the ghost of a moon beam? Will the sand sparkle under your feet as you dance down to the beach, igniting the memories you thought you'd lost forever?

Like that July night when we sat on your rooftop a few blocks from the beach? We'd spent the morning swimming in the ocean and the afternoon making love in your mother's double bed before she came home from work, then we'd all eaten dinner together at the Chinese restaurant across the street, your mom's treat. Now she was downstairs watching tv and you and I were on the roof, sharing a cigarette and looking south toward the bay. We could just see the old wooden footbridge from here, the one where all the kids go diving on summer afternoons. There's a full moon, bright enough to read by. You're singing "Moon Shadow" so softly, your hand in mine as we sit on the parapet looking down at the cars cruising up and down Emmons Avenue.

I have a million memories like that of our time together. Come and look at them anytime, if you think it will help.

I Saw Her Again Last Night

Well, actually it was yesterday afternoon. I would have walked right past her if she hadn't talked to me, I didn't even realize it was her. She was about twelve years old this time, carrying a backpack, wearing a plaid skirt, tights and sneakers. She looked like everybody's kid sister from every tv series ever made.

She stopped and smiled at me, waved her hand eagerly to get my attention. "Hey Jim! How are you today?" she asked. I guess I did a double, or maybe triple, take, thinking, "Who is this kid? She doesn't look familiar. She's not the daughter of one of my tenants". Then I recognized the pony tail, the glasses. "Emily?" I asked.

"Sure,"she giggled, "if that's what you want to call me. But I'd really prefer it if you use my real name. I haven't heard it in so long I can hardly remember it."

I remember it. But I don't think I have the courage to speak it out loud.

The Last St. Patrick's Day Of The Nineteenth Century

On Saint Patrick's Day I always think of my grandmother packing her things on a spring morning in 1899. She's fifteen years old and she's looking at the blue skies and green meadows of County Mayo extra hard, trying to remember every detail, because she knows she'll probably never see them again. She's never been twenty miles from the spot where she was born, and now she's going to cross the Western Ocean to a place she's only read about. She has two dollars and a steamship ticket in her pocket. There's a boy on the village green, waiting to see her off. He'll kiss her cheek and wish her well, and when she's well out of sight he'll cry a little, for what might have been.

Haiku For The Ides Of March

Here in the Forum,

Admirers all around me,

Sun glints on my crown.

My Lady Is Back Home, After Far Too Long

I saw her on the Promenade just before sunset today. I knew it was her right away, even though I hadn't seen her since last fall up in Fort Tryon Park. She was dressed differently, slim brown jeans, ski sweater, suede ugh boots. Her hair was in a pony tail that made her look totally adorable. She still wore the same glasses, and she was walking a white dog. She looked younger like this, maybe seventeen.

She smiled at me when she caught my eye, asked me how I'd been since October. The funny thing was, she didn't seem any more surprised than I was that we were meeting here, under another sunset. I told her I'd had the kind of winter where you start feeling your age and she laughed. "You're not old, Jim!" she said, "It just seems that way because you've been here so long. I used to feel the same way, but now I know how short our time is here. Does that make any kind of sense to you?"

Silly thing was, it did make sense to me.

We stood side by side leaning on the fence, watching the sun slide below the foothills of the Watchung Mountains on the edge of the Jersey horizon. I wanted to put my hand on her shoulder, but I was too afraid that it would pass right through her and touch the cold steel fence instead. I melted inside when I saw how the sunset colored her warm brown eyes. She smiled up at me and said, "Jim, you know that sooner or later you're going to kiss me. And you know what's going to happen when you do."

God, that day seems like it can't come soon enough....

Crazy Lily

Yesterday was your birthday and I wanted to write all about you, about everything you meant to me. About the nights we spent lying in your bed drinking vodka and listening to Beatles records, kissing with your door locked against your mom. About those nights on the beach under the summer moon, tracing star paths and singing spirituals. About how you introduced me to the first true love of my life, and how I'll always be grateful to you for that. But I decided not to, because I want to keep all those memories to myself, nobody else could ever figure out just what it was we meant to each other. So, wherever you are, peace and joy. And thank you!

Which Side Am I On?

Nights like this, when the sky is starry black and moonlight blue, and winter isn't finished dying and spring isn't finished being born, it's so hard to not think of every stupid thing you've ever done wrong in your whole life. The full moon floating like an icy ghost is the last full moon of winter. The stars that glowed on Christmas Eve are sunk down near the western horizon now, fading like solstice memories. And the spring constellations are still somewhere below the eastern horizon, waiting for the equinox. And everywhere I look I see regret.

I've been having serial dreams for a while now, at least since last fall. My life is so different in those dreams, so much happier. In the dreams I'm married to a beautiful Spanish girl and we have an eleven year old daughter. I work at some job that has to do with taking care of rescued animals and we have a very obese cat who always wears a sweatshirt. She sleeps in a cat bed with the litter of  baby squirrels we rescued, whom she's raising as her own. My daughter sings them lullabyes in Spanish to help them sleep. It's almost always a holiday weekend, either Christmas or Fourth Of July, and we're always going to a party.

The longer the dreams go on, the more I find myself hoping that they are my real life and this is the dream, where I sit in the dark writing by the light of the computer monitor. This morning I woke up around sunrise, at the end of a really sweet dream about my daughter's birthday party, and I almost cried when I realized I was here again. Then I remembered my daughter kissing me goodnight in the dream and thanking me for the party and telling me she'd see me in the morning. I guess morning there is night here, so good night.

People Get Ready

I think I dreamed my own death last night, God it felt good. I was walking down a street in Soho on a morning just like today, cold and sunny. To myself I was naked, but when I saw my reflection in a store window I was wearing my usual work clothes. There was no cold, no wind, no weight on my steps. I knew I was dead, and knowing it was a candle burning in a clear red glass. I saw other people who were dead too, I knew them because we all were carrying window panes in our hands.

I came to a corner where there's no subway entrance in the real world, but here were the stairs, wide and smooth and filled with people carrying window panes. As we approached the turnstiles a beautiful woman took the windows from our hands and smashed them on the concrete floor, they broke with a sound like the ghost of  a wind chime you heard on a summer night when you were eight years old. She handed each of us a ticket and we went through the turnstile and down to the platform.

The train came rolling in, pulled by a diesel engine from the 1950s. The cars looked so much bigger than normal, or was it just that I was so much smaller? When the doors opened I walked in and sat in a cross seat by the window, it was upholstered so soft and thick and warm that I wanted to go to sleep. The conductor came down the aisle, she had beautiful long hair and the kindest smile I'd ever seen. She handed me a dog, who curled up in my lap. I looked at him and realized he'd belonged to an old lover of mine, more than a lifetime ago.

We climbed out of the tunnel and started up the ramp like we were going to cross the 59th Street Bridge, but we just kept climbing higher and higher, and the sun looked so cold and the sky looked like liquid pearls and the people in the train looked so happy and I'm sure I saw at least two of my old lovers on board.

And when I woke up my body was as limp as a dishrag and I felt disappointed, but I knew it's only a matter of time.

Ashes

February's a hill made of sadness and dirt. You can see it coming from so far away across the plains but no matter which way you turn it's still in front of you. The trails are all so cold, and the rain that collects in your footprints freezes at night sometimes. But the saddest thing is that tree all the way at the summit, standing black against the opal sky. The bare branches are hung with flowers and necklaces, smoke and heartbeats, all left as talismans by hopeful lovers who passed this way.

January Haiku

The days grow longer,

but the wind is cold and dry.

Lovers stay inside.

January Rain

Rain washing the stones clean now, where just last week the Christmas Market stood like a magical night on the silk road, tents lit bright from within welcoming the pilgrims. Rain sluicing across the smooth grey faces of the flagstones, erasing all the petty little scrapes and scars. Everything is smooth and shiny, under the January rain.