Vocabulary Lessons

My soul has
its own daft
vocabulary;
sometimes
it translates.

Love is playing the line between
wave and sand on warm
summer nights, tasting
salt spray breeze and
laughing out loud,
our faces frozen
in grins.

Grief is walking walking
walking endlessly in
silent snow, looking
at Christmas, and
wanting to be
more drunk.

Rich is the feel of your too warm
skin soft against my lips, the
taste of coconut milk and
exotic spice, the sound
of your perfect song
smooth on my
sensitized
spine.

Beauty is flooding rain
in a dark green hollow,
water pressing down
my neck, fumbling
beneath my clothes,
eating every solid
line and raising
mists like
smoke.

Death is the taste of rotting
teeth that comes and goes
and flavors every food,
the tremors that grab
my hands and won’t
let go, the sudden
weakness in all
my limbs.

Sickness is the smell of sweat
corrupted sheets, white blood
cells in the air, the pained
rib aching maybe for
its ancient
mate.

Contentment is lying back on sun
warmed rock, eyes pushed
closed, pressing palms
and soles against its
rough smooth
surface.

Laughter is the long-haired funny-
faced hippie-chick, squint eyes
streaming shoulders heaving,
a halo that welcomes itself
and everyone.

Childhood is summer sitting on back concrete
steps while grass is pushed down with sticky
dew, and the sun sheds shadows at sharp
morning angles; breathing air new
mixed with clover, corn
leaves, and perennial
rye.

Desire is standing near enough to scent
you – soap and pheromones and new
washed hair, eyes locking and
looking away – tentative and
full of knowing, faces drawn
together by accident, lips
almost brushing,
not quite.

Sad is the retired cop who owned
his suicide son’s torment; sad is
the disappointed disappointing
child whose gifts go
unreceived; sad is
seeing the look
in your eye
that tells
me to
go away.