March

Visions in the Park

I've seen all these people

in the park before,

seen the guys at the table

over there,

the girls laying

on the blankets,

the children playing

in the pond,

seen the people with their

headphones on,

the groups of thirty somethings

some with kids and

others hardly jobs

but here they are together

with the lady selling samosas and

the couples

kissing in the grass or

sitting on the benches

and the guy collecting cans,

empty cans

like all the lives we’ve left

in previous summers.

I've seen the sun go down

behind the trees,

seen the people peel away

for dinners out,

for drinks,

for nights away

from quiet homes,

and seen them later

on the terrasses,

at the bars,

on the balconies

and at the street corners

walking back

through the park

where memories of us

still linger in the grass:

bottle caps

and cigarette stubs

our lips almost touched,

our fingers briefly held,

our lives almost met.

Our lives:

all left in summers

that we’ve seen before,

in visions we can only

take with us and leave,

and come back

to a little square of park

where we can sit

or lay

or kiss

to look for them again.

Until the Feeling Returns

You ask me

how I’m feeling today,

and all I can say

is that the form

is foreign

to the sounds in my mouth.

But remember my

mouth is frozen,

and the feeling will return

like this:

cold hands in a hot shower

or the sighing

expanding of the door frame

in the summer heat

or footsteps on the street,

the sort of going out

in the loud night

that makes friends

and lovers

and memories

like flowers that

little animals eat all spring

with thawing mouths

like me,

and they can eat

and grow strong again

and not have to say

how they feel.

I have to figure out

how to say

these mouthing thoughts,

and that is how I feel at all

the weakness of this

state I’m in,

and that is why

you should just think of me

for now

like I am eating flowers

until the feeling returns.