confession

everyone asks
if they are where they are supposed to be,

if they chose the right path.

I plod this corridor,
seeing your faces
hearing your voices
not attending your events.

Like turning my head
to see through a cracked door
something private-- like one undressing
or embracing
a lover.

I see you
making music.

I see you
laughing.

I see you
sitting, walking, thinking
perhaps too strenuously.

see you

acting.
advocating.
living.


my hand trembles on the knob.
knowing the knock my disturb you inside,
that an unannounced arrival
might be too
                awkward.

I remember
I chose to leave
to be

somewhere else.


Do I close the door,
or continue
to watch from afar?

-----------------------------

For My "dear", Lauren
The one who confuses me, Martin
the ones who taught me to think, Liz Core, Andrew, Henry, Joe, Keith.

The ones I could have been "In" with.

For conversations sparked and lost.

For those I have neglected.

Last year Goshen... Say good bye?

carving

inch
  by inch,

rather,

micrometer by manometer,

                                        canyons are carved.

like a crayon,
         craving for a four year old's hand,

you carve a smear across my wall.

                                                   Stress builds.

you were just playing.
you do not understand
                                 the history

that brought us to this breaking point,
                                                       the number lashes
                                                       whipped by westerly winds that finally made way for

                                        a canyon.
   



I feel I am fighting the wind.

it laughs.