At my window

I sit on the windowsill
My feet propped sideways on the heater
Every breath fogs the glass
And crystallizes you in my eye
Today I found your picture
In its lost place in my mind
Called up through the haze
Of longing and need
That I have denied knowledge of
In my effort to pretend to be over you

Today I hold my own arms and need
To be touched by your strong hands
I want to rest my head against your chest
And close my eyes in safety
Breathe in the scent that surrounds
My every memory of being next to you
I hear your voice when I sleep
Disappointed to find it is only a pillow
I am holding at the breaking of night

Tomorrow morning I will count
Rows facing me across an even road
And wonder what you will see
As you face a new day
Will you feel my loss
At waking up without you
Hear me whisper your name
Into the blowing prairie wind
In a time of open doors
The harvest of my truth is
I have never stopped loving you

© NP 10/11

Rows

I long to eat mangoes
Fruit flesh firm like mine
Golden hued and kissed
Under your urgent lips
With only a hint of sweet
Mulattoed blend
And picked cotton scented
Long lower limbs stretched
Into the edge of each row
Feeling the difference
Of a forced cohabitation
With old world and new
Free and freedom and fear
I can’t see that far
While I am awake
It is only in dreams
Twixt owl’s call and bat wings
That I can run through the wind
© NP 10/11