Untitled Unrelated Poems

On the white swing on the porchthere was a firefly in your hairAnd a daisy in my lapAs I swang on the swingyour roommate made with his own handsAnd the beer bottleyou drank with your own lipswith the same tongue youmet my tongue withMy heart hurts for your handsI want them in the strings of my hair. While I watch you in the evening sunas you clean the lastpiece of dustoff the mirror on my dashboardand I want to cry until you danceHow simple life was whenyou told me you wanted to learnhow to dance with me. We walked together in the rainand my eyelashes would flutterso would my heart as you sangunder your breath the songsOf our youth and we are still young. Which one of us holds the handof the other firstwe don’t count such smallgestures and for all appearanceswe seem together... No one knows, I am leaving you.After the day you promise to careabout the way you say friendyou love my lashes and you saidthe way my wavy hair coveredmy left eye, you said it took yourbreath away. You took my life awayso I said goodbye. I lie here now twenty years later.your screaming wife on the phoneI heard about the crazy divorcekids crying and lawyersI thought I might call you then and tell you I’m lonelynot for you, but for your songsand the dances you promisedme you would dance in my room. i'm lying between cold sheetsthe window is cracked openand after all these years I rememberthe firefly that almost went in your earand the broken wooden swinga splinter in my finger and the taste of beeron my lips.How would we knowHow would we knowabout life’s small adventuresin all the years it rained afterand all the years it will rain still I will always flutter my wet lashes,And think of your rough handson the steering wheeldriving me to my death.  *  You said you are a seer and I’m the one you seeand I called your bluff about the universewhile we ran through the rose bushes,with blood on our handsfrom thorns we thought would belike whiskey in a bottle that is brokengiving us sweet yesterdayswe thought the blooming of our perennialswould keep all the people in todayThere is no tomorrow, you promisedyou saw, there is no way to walk away from this day.  * I saw you in the fogyou looked like a blurand I saw your hands move up and downand I wanted to kiss the noseI could not see, in depths of the mist.We are, we are, we are invisiblein this morning breezefor once I don’t exist except as aFootprint in the dirt.stand next to meSee my red toes as Iwant to be noticedeven when the cloudsSlip through us.  *  Mama please don’t fretthis isn’t going to lastI’m only lying to you nowbecause my eyes are tiredand my foot makes no sensewhen it falls out of my shoe. Daddy you know how muchlife costs, you know all thewicked tastes of empty boxesthat you gave to the manon the street who handed youa towel, a wet towel. Don’t thank me for noticingyour small intimate memoriesyour perfect shoes, mama you wearthem with the posture of a goddess. Dad you gave the shirton you back to the manwho said you were a geniein a bottle of wine. Standing in back of peoplespitting in your faceyour turban they called a toweland you still prayed for theirinsanity. You two are the only loveI’ve seen last, I’ve seen throughI’ve seen the wicked natureof life in your homeyou showed me that love is a gold shoe and blue towelWith no one’s name engraved on it. How can I, how can I, thank you foryour humanity.  *  I don’t want to be that kind of womanwho makes you stay up all nightto harp about things that happenedthirty years ago, or thirty seconds. I just want to shout at youfor not noticing my need for a hugor the smell of the garbage you didn’t take to the curb.But instead you swept up myhair and kissed my neck. I asked you to wash my hair.there was a madness in your eyesyesterday. You took waterand splashed it in my faceas if, as if, we are water and hairand a small dollop of strawberry shampoospilling out of your hands.This is all we are. nina