At the Mirror   Trimming your beard you say "I can scarcely stand to look at myself". An aging man's bleak, surrendered truth. You stand before me naked, sorrowed, shamed. I ache for you to know your solid beauty, press my face to every frank crease of you, a winter doe, lipping the clean salt of your skin.

Epiphany

 

I have been behind the house

noticing the prints of small animals

who have visited our yard seeking

the extravagantly scattered seed.

In the majestic purity of the light

the shadows of their imprints

are a tender blue.

It is no longer Christmas;

my children have returned

to the thrilling velocity of their lives;

my lover has slipped into his blue car

to journey home,

grieving in his solitary way

an old friend dead too soon.

It is no longer Christmas,

and I am battling sorrow, balling up the wrapping paper

for the garbage, banishing the angels

from the mantle and the windowsills;

wistful refugees.

But I can’t put away the joyous music,

the music I forgot to play in its own season.

And I am gripped by a need to believe

it is not too late to say

Gloria in excelsis,

even in this house of jaded nonbelievers,

slip the silvery disk from the box, while I pack

the sparkling things away.

And how is it that the fragrance of the holy lingers here,

in this house of uncertainty,

where we celebrate our great, untidy loves;

how is this is somehow, year by year, enough?

O magnum mysterium; the swelling harmonies, the bells,

the sustained coyote notes of organ,

hard and clear as icicles

hanging from the eaves.

Last night we noted how

the silver twilight announced

the hopeful lingering of the light.

And my loves,

how their light lingers here,

and if grace is all it seems

at this graced moment,

then surely all the faithful hearts will come,

if drawn away, and come again.

Saturday Morning

 

Here is a poem I found while you were sleeping;

it reminds of the particular ways

you make me love you,

and I’ll just leave it here,

in case you get a chance to read it;

here is a cup of coffee, black the way you like it,

that I will set beside you on top of the clock radio

as you page through the discography

of Frank Zappa. Here is another pillow

for propping up against; yes, I am going

to make some toast for us but first,

I can’t help mentioning

how the pheromones

draw the cats to the bed,

how they loll in the tangle of our sheets,

too blissed-out to swipe at your bare toes.

I am having aftershocks,

finding reasons

to interrupt you, to bite your shoulder and press

my face against your back .

You just want to read—is that asking too much on a Saturday

morning in February? When last night you met me with

pea soup and smoky scotch and led me to our couch

to tell me everything with your hands?

I will leave you alone now,

but first I need to know if you’ll want marmalade

or butter only,

and I was just thinking of bringing you this,

and a small black cat,

and just, I promise, one more kiss.