Sanguine

I come across the word sanguine
and linger for a moment, another, and
another still. I know you, I say
to the word. I've looked you up
before, and yet it remains just beyond
the reach of my memory. It is the girl
on the other side of the cafeteria.
We are back in middle school and I
am sitting before a pizza-like thing
while my friends talk their talk.
I sneak glances at the girl who
just might be glancing at me, but
I can never quite know for sure.
Her name is Sanguine and she
is getting up to go to her next class.
The bell has rung. Our time is up.

If These Words Were A Poem

If these words were a poem
they would be broken into
lines (and maybe even

stanzas) so that you
would digest them slowly
like a cat toying with

an imitation mouse that
you both hope is filled
with sweet catnip.

If these words were a poem.

Accepting Gratefully and Saying Thank You

I've never been good at accepting
the help of others. I learned somewhere
that it was wrong to say yes to a helping hand,
and that it was better to say thank you kindly
but do the thing I had to do by myself.
All along, I've known that something
was wrong with my refusals, that I was
somehow being unkind to the person
who was doing just what I would do
were the situations reversed.

Now, after an operation, I can't do everything
for myself. The snow in the driveway for example.
March keeps presenting us with a bounty of the stuff
and it gets beyond the ability of my wife who
cares for me and for two young children.
Lucky for me, my friends, my brother, my father,
all of them have just brought their shovels or
started our snowblower and cleared the snow
without first knocking on the door or calling
on the phone to ask if they can help.

I find myself gratefully accepting their help,
my brother who checks up on me on his way to work,
my neighbor who clears the snow before I'm awake
and stops by the hospital to read my x-rays,
each showing me love I'm not sure I deserve.
I find myself wondering how to thank them,
what words to use to express to them how grateful
I am to have the snow cleared out of our driveway
and to have them understand how difficult it is for me
to ask for help or to accept offers of help.

Perhaps it's as simply as saying thank you and
when I am back on my feet and whole again
sharing a glass of wine, a meal, a handshake.
Perhaps it's as simple as accepting their next offer
to help me with whatever I might need.

Morning Forecast

I woke this morning cold and still tired
and looked out the window at a fine snow falling.
The sun had yet to rise.

The snow had not added up to much
as compared to the feet of it we already had,
but it was still early.

The furnace was still sleeping at its low setting
and I stood, staring out the window shivering
and considering the day so far.

The winter cold, the sun yet to rise;
the expectation of things I had yet to do
and the slow accumulation of the falling snow.

Haiku - Ice

Outside the window
rain freezes as it strikes ground
always knocks us down

Something in nature--
this ice, that tornado wants
us down on the ground

slipping and sliding
falling time and time again
we keep getting up

Outside the window
frozen rain is a mirror
See, I'm still standing.

The Evidence of Vinyl Underwear

In talking with a friend over two too many beers
we discussed our wives and the ways in which our lives
had gone off the tracks we had dreamed for ourselves
as children in high school and college.

He said that his wife had given up on sexy clothing
that touch was becoming a burden to her, another job
to be done between baby feedings and laundry,
and that he wondered how things had come to this state.

The beer flowing freely through me, I said that
if I bought my wife something sexy, vinyl underwear perhaps,
she would look at it sadly, as another reminder of my
unreasonable expectations of her and unapprecitation too.

She would hold it before me like evidence at a trial
and the jury would shake their heads, look my way, then look down.
The judge would sentence me and a bailiff would put me in cuffs
and lead me to a cell where I would sit all alone.

We were both quiet for a moment, my friend and I,
drinking our beer down to the warm bottom.
Then he smiled and said, "but the bailiff is hot, right?"
I smiled "Yeah," I said, "and when she snaps the cuffs on, oh boy."

We laughed and ordered another, just to let more time pass us by.