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Doors. Boxes. Deals. Cabinets. Bottles. Stores.

Petals. Minds.

Windows. Trunks. Accounts. Pantry. Gates. Street.

 Past. Eyes. 

Screens. Laptops. Highways. Faucets. Bags. Houses.

 Future. Mouth.

Drawers. Books. Bidding. Fridges. Bags. Arenas. 

Opportunities. Hands.

Garage. Pianos. Captions. Microwaves. Lids. Meetings.

Letters. Arms. 

Curtains. Suitcase. Restaurant. Oven. Milk Carton. Investigation.

Conversations. Arteries, valves, veins and ventricles. 

Too much, too close. 

Dairy Queen

It's not a holiday weekend here, like at the Dairy Queen. 

I'm not having a girls' night with 

my friends while we wait for the 

men, doing their duty as always. We

let them go in the Spirit of the weekend. 

I didn't iron your dress-shirt for you before you left

because you didn't wear one. 

I didn't watch you shave in the mirror

to give yourself that all-important clean-cut 

look after a lazy day. 

Nor did I smile to myself at the pride

left in the scent of your shaving lotion.

You didn't leave with your grandfather and brothers

but went out with different boys to "live it up"

instead of sitting still...still...still.

I didn't sigh to myself that yes, here was Heaven

a little sooner, watching you 

walk down the path and look back.

I'll never see you at the Dairy Queen on a Saturday night,

just like the others in your white shirt and suit--

tie and tacks and pinstripes and expressions the only

outward feature that distinguishes you

from the other like-purposed men. 

Doute

Like a snake it whispers behind 

my ear and coils itself

around my spine--

it constricts around my rib-

cage and squeezes my heart. 

This ground forming waves beneath me:

my boat capsizes into the 

winter flurries that obstruct my view

of a true north I'll never

find.  

The pendulum 

swings from ear to ear 

and upsets lady justice

with her scales. 

The clock's second hand is 

a hostage

holding resolve for ransom 

while action and conviction

deliberate over sums. 

It explains away those

certain thoughts

with a hissing caress

I tick away with 

my shoulder 

until the ticking touches me

and it becomes itself. 

Halo

Yes, it's true you have a light

that's burned into my soul. It is 

small and dim, but I see it there 

when you are not looking. 

On the days when I dare myself to touch it

I reach out, and I'm glad I did.

In that brief moment, our two lights join,

embracing one another

they leave behind the bands 

that hold themselves to us and

reach out their once-feeble arms 

to touch across cities, countries, continents--

emboldened by the spirit they find there...

but my light withdraws in fear and shame

when it can see no halo beneath your 

collar. 

Crosses in the Sky

The weeks are waning, the long night is growing dim,

somewhere we set down our pens and seal the last stamp

before blessing the hands that carry our thoughts

one final time. 

Again, our tails form crosses in the sky

and we leave behind imprints of ourselves

to join the moments that will never be born--

so ghosts that were may plan for the ones

that never will be--the dreams of distant days

before I was me. 

Comfort yourself 

that something of the air I breathed

will breath in you;

something of the scenes I saw, 

you'll see;

something of the ground I walked

will know your feet--

and it would seem as if you were me.

We step into new waters, 

with unpredictable tides

tumulted by winds and floods. 

I give you no words now,

but premonitions of what I may be

and the assurance that--whatever 

our crosses--

you may always be a part of me.  

Team Mascots

This is the kind of stuff I'm going to miss when I'm away:

Today, my little brother came home with his first pair of shoes for cross country (from our favorite running shoe supplier DeBoer's!) and his uniform. I'm excessively excited. In my enthusiasm, I asked my brother how practice was going. He said that there was a group of fast runners, medium-paced runners, and slow runners and he was in the medium-paced. I was fairly impressed (seeing as how he rebuffed my offers to go running with me all summer and sat on the couch instead). Then he said, "But all the slow runners are girls." 

To which I replied, "So you're a slow man."

"Yes, but I'm not the slowest."

"Are you the slowest man?"

"No, the team mascot is slower." 

Biggest laugh of the day, and I'd even watched two episodes of The Office, so that's saying something.

Lessons from Hello Kitty

I spent the weekend with my awesome friends at the not-nearly-as-awesome BYU. Saturday morning, Ashley made me toast with an imprint of Hello Kitty's face in the Hello Kitty toaster. I loved it; not because I love Hello Kitty, but because I derived a certain satisfaction out of eating her face. As Cat said, "I approve of violent eating tendencies."