Sunset
Smile
You stand
in the light
like it's
holding its breath—
that hour
when everything
bleeds
gold,
then lets
go
We don't
talk about the sky
turning—
only that
the stillness stirs
in our
throats
and it’s
growing hard
to tell
warmth from afterglow.
You touch
my hand
like it’s
something you’re returning
Not all at
once,
Not enough
to notice
But the
shadow your thumb leaves
is longer
than it was yesterday
Later,
I’ll try
to remember
the last
thing you said
before the
sun slept
But right
now
your
sunset smile
makes
everything look like home
Past
Imperfect
Lying
alone in your bed,
I envision
your silhouette
Wrapping
around my comma-curled body
like a
question mark—
Asking all
the questions you never posed, or
perhaps,
just those I refused to answer.
I wondered
what it meant
to
intimately be tucked into an ellipsis
spun taut
between sheets,
scattered
stanzas, and split infinitives—
If all but
for a story half-stated.
Love, left
dangling—
the
subject left unspoken
In the
bleeding inky night, barren and
uneven.
I awaken
alone,
yearning
for what was, or
rather,
what could have been.
And I
can't help but wonder—
Do you
greet dawn alone,
In
solitude, as I do?
Cold Coffee
In the quiet corner of a crowded café
I watched old souls steep in memory's slow
drip,
In-between timid sips and silent smiles,
They whispered of a love long lost.
Did they notice me?
Tracing the latticework on their worn
faces
Stained like coffee rings spilt in
laughter,
Or maybe,
Outpoured by tears.
Did they see me?
Sipping on their words
Teasing them on the tip of my lips
To take them one by one
As not to burn my tentative tongue.
Or did they watch me?
Evading their warm gaze,
From the burnt reflection
Brewing in my dark, mirrored mug
Where I now find myself, at a table for
two,
Reaching, as they do, for my glass—
A reflection of future's past.
Where our hands would graze and smiles
would linger
Memories of familiar—or forgotten—warmth
overflow,
Only to part as the moment slips away
Between bittersweet sips of now-cold
coffee.
Dust to
Dust
I remember
when you taught me to drive,
Thick blue
smoke coughing from that old red car
My
knuckles whitened on the wheel
While you
made a pulpit from the passenger's seat,
"Lust leads to ruin", you warned
As if my
soul might swerve off the road
Even now,
your voice rattles me louder than the engine ever could.
When you
go, it'll be like you never left.
Your
chair, still indented—the same one
Where you
bounced my mother
On your
knee and later me
Childlike
laughter lingering like the static hum
Of Gunsmoke reruns.
I remember
the weight of fish on the line,
The
grimace of pulling the barb from its mouth—
How I
believed it screamed in anguish.
"Don't worry. They'll forget the pain,"
you insisted.
But maybe
it's just the hook that forgets.
Now, you
sit, quiet, Bible upon your lap,
Pages
fluttering like wings of a captive dove.
As you
dwell in the shadow of the Almighty,
I walk in
the valley—
Hoping
some shepherd might lead me
Where I
cannot see—No rod, no staff
Only the
wind
Only the
fading footsteps.
I remember
pulling over on dirt roads
Dust
swirling in our wake
Where we'd
gaze at that old white oak,
Whose
curling branches cradled an eagle's nest.
They've
been gone for years now
But their
home remains.
Do you
think they forgot where they nested,
Or does
their tree forget them?
Do you
remember watching home movies,
Faces
flickering on a dim-lit screen?
You used
to name them all.
Now you
watch in searching—
"Who is she?" you ask, pointing to
my mother.
"And her?"—your own
Whose name
is unwriting in time.
I remember
rain in your eyes,
Washed in
the flood of a tale you no longer recall—
Your
mother, wavering at well’s edge,
Almost
swallowed like Jonah/
But
through a miracle, saved
And from
that grace,
She begot
an only son.
I'll
probably end up like you
Forgetting
lessons molded in your wrinkled hands,
Until even
my own name becomes dust,
nothing
but dust.
But as you
always said—
"From ashes to ashes and
dust to dust"
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