Ginger ale

I'm drinking a ginger ale and wishing it were a beer.

San Juans

We are three packs headed into the valley
toward some crater lake, so many are named crater.
The San Juan mountains poking out of the earth like sleepy animals,
foggy and damp.
They are brothers, and I am like a brother.
There is the smooth swing of legs under Colorado pines
and the odd welcome of shouldering a burden.
We have whiskey, some rope, extra socks, a mandolin.
The important stuff, and some food.
An old avalanche chute gives us a view of the water
below the switchbacks and moss and meadow grass.
The lake could be made of tears, I remember thinking that.
The beginning of a stay in the mountains,
three peaceful beings equipped for peace.
The fullness of feeling that this was just starting, and—with that rebellious itch
that comes from time in the wilderness—we could fold ourselves away
into all the crater lakes across the pine-needled world.

A regular jagged empty area

There's really not much to say about it.
I'm lonely.
I can feel quite definitely the place
where the missing piece should be.
It is a regular jagged empty area,
nondescript, but real.
I feel fond towards it most of the time
knowing the piece exists,
that I've carried it in me, complete.
All of you, everyone that I am far from,
I am well and full and brightly being myself,
but tonguing that jagged hole
like the sore crater of a pulled tooth.
I am fascinated by the pain.
I return to it, feeling, feeling, feeling.
You should be there.

Song

I've got this song I've been working on
I strum through it when I pick up my guitar,
wrote most of it and then kinda let it sit.
It isn't finished, but sounds good
when I hum it or sing it or speak it
in its parts that aren't put together,
in its incomplete gathering of sentiment.
It keeps my attention—every time I hear it
I am singing it.
It can't be heard anywhere else, the way it is different
every time I offer it up.

Oatmeal

Getting groceries, we do the usual
asking one another what we thought we needed
pausing by things that looked either good or necessary
stopping a moment to think if this aisle may have an item we need,
then getting corralled out by another shopping cart
piloted by someone with a much more defined sense of purpose than our own.
Other than the grocery store, we don't go to places of this scale often.
I often get a bit caught-up in looking around,
also feeling like you standout from the shoppers
so singular and beautiful, a smile blooming on that most beautiful stem of yours.
I see oats and we need oats, I remember.
I lay the thick metal scoop deep into them, twist once in their light resistance,
watch you walking off for cauliflower or juice.
Outside the radius of my arms in this grocery, you are a woman walking
bright eyes scanning
legs moving on hips turning under clothes stunning.
The oats scuttle into the bag I hold out for them.
I'm so glad I remembered them, so glad I see you right now as I do.

Road

We just needed a change of scenery
from the way winter had ground down around our neighborhood.
Sure, it's the same anywhere
everywhere winter seems long this time of year,
the February hurrah of snow and cold.
We got outta town, steering wheel twitching with the rumpled road.
Look out the window at winter.
Here, there, where we were. Where we're going.
I'd had the flu already, the one that comes around
when people are cold and tired every year.
It was time to move out of the daily radius
of home to car to work to home.
Leave all that behind us for a weekend.
Put a smile on things, anyway.

February

February is the longest month.
We realize we've been cold forever,
that we are spending our lives this way.

chicken

A mouthful of wine,
I was sitting at the counter
at home
thinking of words that would make sense
that would convey this peppery, dark, rich liquid
to someone standing there
under florescent lights after work
wondering if it would go well with chicken.