Broken Timelines Still Tell Time

When we first met

are the only words I get to write

before a lean over my shoulder to see.

Already failure

at held back laughter

at pity for strained attempts.

"An improbability tugboat,"

he says,

"You really think you can put me down on paper?"

Giggles squirt sides of mouth.

Head rolls back, eyes close on reflex.

I did ‘til now.

Deep inhalation.

Side glances at my determination.

Seeded sympathies now deliberating germination

assess season

sample soil

moon phase

environmental conditions.

*

How to describe the undescribable…

*

Multiple first encounters vary.

Dimensions incarnations old.

Different bodies same soul.

"I’ll break your poem,"

he says.

Might be right.

But who said poems need be unbroken and pristine?

I arrange words on paper around erratic timelines

their crevices stuffed with contradictions

alien context and jokes no one gets.

*

Who saw who first?

*

Musical mood notes spiral an elliptical tail

that falls back on itself

showing me at 23 still unsure

flailing heart reeking imperfections channeling purity

imbalanced yin

with a hide-and-seek voice fascinating the heck outta you

piss drunk on your own yang

Zero word game.

Histrionic body language meant to be a mating call

instead a charade ringer for convulsing spider monkey.

I felt compassion

after I laughed so hard I cried.

On point rescue.

(All me.)

At 18 a masked bravado swagger you

hanging with much older street boys.

Not looking for a thing.

Terror swings out your back pocket.

No clue where life’s headed.

I feet plant in front of you a human map.

Your relief palpable.

The fellas think you’re on a hunt.

In all my lives

I ain’t never been prey.

We find a wall and you bare all,

a role reversal double take reduces me

to bob and weave

as you pepper me with vulnerabilities I did not expect.

Whoa.

Dude!

(All you.)

Fifties coalescence past pretense and photoshopping.

What you see is what you see.

Hella stubborn.

Refuses eye exams

exercise regimens

common effing sense.

Got a negative rep and emotional comorbidities.

Need a smack upside the head.

They got two-for-one deals at Costco.

Frustrated purpose distills a potent kind of crazy.

It happens sometimes.

We sip sambuca

rediscover last birth charts

plan our next life.

(All us.)

After I sit down for mealtime at preschool,

everyone eats but I am stone.

A fat fly crawls inside the wax paper of my sandwich.

At four-years-old

I can’t reconcile Mommy’s addition of fly for lunch

and how I’ll manage.

My outburst attracts a teacher.

You are silent seething with worry at table’s end.

Protective arms from a distance

connected through cries.

I wonder how long you’ve known.

At 30 a volume injection staged intervention.

I shivered through North Florida snow flurries and

glared disbelief at subtropical rising blood moons.

Being told I’m too sensitive shadowy solemn shy.

I retreat.

Backfired plans.

When yang up and body-slammed me on the dojo mat.

Forced shouts over my perpetual whisperings and

decreed balance a state of eternal trumps.

Seeing you, armed reckoning

sorry but not sorry,

relaying the futility of ordinal numbers.

Whys and wherefores eclipsed by the warmth of our union

Unequal lengths of sojourn.

Absent parallels and logic lost but

always my heart on your sleeve

your soul through my choice

if only in next lives

we remember.

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