Strange how the mirror ripples
ripples when I touch it.
Strange how my face triples
in the pain.
Wait. That should be pane.
Weary in the night.
Teary in the night.
No tears were shed
in making my mind up.
Turning my bed down.
Turning my life upside down.
Reaching to the right
for that pillow
that hit the floor.
Too late, to catch it
Too late, to catch her.
Sound of silence
rather than breathing
except my own
and someone crying.

What passes for dreams,
dreams of schemes
and sorrows,
borrowing sorrow and sight
from her eyes,
wondering what she sees.

Doesn’t matter the day.
Two converse in silence,
if at all.
Either finishing each other’s sentences
or not hearing a word
spoken. Heated frame of reference
limited to a hot kitchen stove,
Sunday dinner with smiles,
especially during holidays.
But after that excuse,
all is quiet.
Arid emotion and sensible shoes.

I dreamed of sex last night
in summer fields and pools
of water and blue eyes.
“Trust me,” they said,
“and love me always.”
So what if blue turns green or gray?

Foolish pride and forgetting to ask
for directions.
Losing the way or lost along the way.
Needing to stop and forgetting
where I put the brake.
I have forgotten where I put a lot of things.
Others I know where they are,
but a day becomes a week
becomes a year.
And still I forget to take them out.
But I haven’t forgotten how to say,
“I love you.”
Sometimes I think I have forgotten
when to say it.
Other times, I wonder if anyone cares
if I say it.
I must,
just be a fool,
because I still remember why I say it.