The Walls we build

All around us, four sides to frame my reality
picture perfect prisons defining you and me.
They are so thick, wide, dense and tall.
I am within, you are without, against these odds
we are insignificant, we are so very small.
Time drifts while I wait for something,
anything to happen, as if I had not marked
each day, vertical scratches keeping score
I isolate and dream of escape until I remember
that in these walls there is no door.

Father's Day

We went for a walk, the trees were tall, the grass was green.
We stood at the gate, I was so very small, it's the seconds
that count, the time in between.
He looked down at me, I back up at him, at his crooked smile.
His hand was placed on my shoulder, so young, so thin.
we stood there for awhile.
All this someday will be yours, he seemed to say, the sky so blue.
We looked at the world, in the remains of the day,
I thought that because he said it- it must be true.
We went for a walk, the trees were old, the leaves are falling.
We stopped at the gate, his hand so cold, time fleeting,
memory fails, all that remains is my father's calling.
Come away from the past,
It was never meant to last,
In this life, we are bound to roam,
but at my father's door, I know
now, at last, I am home.

With Sylvia in the Morning

"Did you ever think that you would be anywhere other than here with me?"
She whispered across the rumbled sheets that morning, before pulling it up
across her chest, recurving the landscape, the satin smoothness rounded by
the presence of her breast. my mind wonders as I contemplate the right words
I should say, how can I tell her that I never dreamed there would ever be a way
that I would find myself in her bed, nothing more than a few inches away from
her lips, the silver bangs framing her head.
"I never would have dreamed that there would be any other place to be."
I respond knowing that our sudden plunge into this affair finds us now here
on the shared mattress, our feelings and desires laid bare to be considered
in the way my rough fingers caress her own, the spots in her once smooth skin
tracing all my doubts, all my fears, no regard to the apparent abyss between
us, the unspoken taboos we have knowingly shattered, the tapestries within.
"All those years, we knew each other- never guessing that it would lead to this."
She says looking away from me up towards the ceiling, with the loss of her gaze
I watching the shallowness of her breathing, remembering again the press of her
flesh on mine, the way her stomach felt under my touch, the soft sighs,
the absence now fills me with a certain trepidation that nothing else will ever do
as much to satisfy that deep yearning I have always felt every time I was near
her not knowing that our mutual desires would take so very long to kindle
my ambitions to make love to the woman I have, for years, admired.
"When I forced myself to admit it, you were always the one I wanted to kiss."
She rolls towards me, the smile playing on her lips, joining together in the space
between, she places her right hand on my hip, eye to eye, nose to nose, I know
now, as if for the first time, that love has no boundaries, that age and space are
but illusions that we allow to tell us that she was too old for this, I was so young
that it seemed impossible, that we let others keep us apart, not willing to listen
even then to what was in our hearts.
"Where do we go from here?" I hear myself say, not wanting to ever leave her side.
I am not new to oldness, the bone ache only matched by the way my nerves beginning
to shake, have I left it all too late, a moment more then my heart breaks.
"Nowhere anytime soon." She answers as she grins, ideas revealed eyes opening wide.
She traces the arc of the curve of my arm, over the map of my life dispalyer under
her fingers, time has caught up with my youth, I am here before her beauty, realizing the
truth.
"I love you." Escapes with a rush of breath, all the doubts pushing away, regret is now
just something else I will soon forget. A tear slides sideways down her left eyes
splashing like a great wave on her upper arm, the happy sadness on her cheeks
leaves me wavering with relief.
"I love you too, my heart." she whispers coming closer into our embrace, our faces meet
fragrance powdered and sweet compounded with our heat, the romance of statements
almost complete. the laugh lines are like maps tracing her design, the moments pass.
I am hers, she is mine. This is what joy can be, this is what finally set us free. we made
a choice, we have done what we did.
As she moves to kiss me, she sighs softly and says: "Now what should I tell my kids?'