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it is late, my love.
and i have traveled far today.
my calves are sore from too-tight socks
and my back aches from the want of lying flat.

it has been too long erect
with strength and burden and smile
without a hand to strip it of cloth
and a knuckle to knead.

it is so late, my love.
and i park myself in empty lots
to look at the moon through my sun roof
and recall the places i’ve been today –
and recall the people i’ve seen

and took time to actually see.

 

do you know how many people are in this great big world?
all of them alive
but a very few living,
like unpopped kernels in the bottom of a bowl,
hiding under all the fluff.

 

i taste salt.

 

do you know how many people are in this great big world?
and how absolutely strange it is
that there are so many, everywhere
but so few, anywhere
who’s arms i might fit in.

 

they’re mostly too tight or too loose
or they prod in wrong directions
or push up aisles

or down corridors

i don’t wish to go down.

they hold up
or hold under

when i’d rather bob along

they instruct without hearing
the lessons i could teach

 

those are not arms that a traveler can rest within.

 

give me, please, your arms,
the ones that melt the chill on my skin
from November nights
with the smell of snow on the wind

and reheat the fire inside.

the ones that dig deep
into the knots that lock up my muscles
and through pain,
break pain,
and disperse that which tied me.

the ones that graze and cradle
my face as it looks on yours,

the ones that excite and study
the creases of my thinning skin,

the ones that catch
and bare my weight with effortless strength –
that lift me up and lay me down
and bring me to the table

give me please, those arms
that let go
and are filled still
by my shape and shadow

give me, please, your arms,
for it is late, my love

and i have traveled far today.

 

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