Wide Space

There is a wide space between us,
All of us.
We pass by so many people in a day,
And brush closely, closely enough
To feel their breath on your skin,
Or graze the hair on their arms,
Or rub against the rough cotton of their shirt sleeves or jeans,
But still we are all separated.

To cross that space requires a catalyst.

This may be strong emotions,
Like anger,
Or desire.

Or this catalyst may be something softer,
Like sympathy pushing us to reach out
And offer to warmly hold the stranger,
Just to prop him up,
For a moment.

Or merely the need for warmth,
That allows us to put aside our fears,
Or anxieties,
Or better judgment,
And to allow ourselves to
Step across the space and join together
Even if only for a moment.

It can be a perilous step,
But it's something we all find ourselves doing
Every now and then.

A Coin in the Liffey

I once threw a coin in the River Liffey.
Which is not such a mighty river, not wide, nor deep,
Nor beautiful, nor famous.
But at that moment, it was the only river at hand,
And it was an old river, in an old city,
A city that had known many broken hearts and broken dreams
And those whose fissures were mended after long struggles.

So as we stood together over the bridge on O'Connell Street,
The icy dagger of the Spire just down the road,
With the traffic rushing by behind us,
On a mild June afternoon with a bright Irish sun
Burning the sky above our heads,
I leaned over the railing of the bridge,
And tossed the coin over the side and
Watched it as it wavered a bit in the brisk wind
Then disappeared beneath the murky water.

As the little piece of metal left my palm, I let my mind speak.
I wished that the waters of the old-world river,
That had seen so many travelers arrive and depart over the centuries,
From the missionaries to the Vikings to the Plantagenets to the starving who
Left their green, windy homeland for the chance to thrive,
Would carry my coin and my wish down to the shores near Dublin,
Down into the waters of the sea,
Around the coast of the island,
Out to the open ocean beyond,
All the way to the new world, where
It might be welcomed in a warm, inviting harbor there,
And travel over hill, valley, sidewalk, train track, skyscraper, electric fence,
And anything else that might stand in its way,
To reach an open heart,
Open arms and open mind and open eyes.

I wished for this wish to encircle the world and bring it to me.
I would walk across a thousand bridges over a thousand rivers
To wait for it to come to me.

Leave It Unsaid

I could say that I wanted you to press your mouth and your lips
Against my skin and
To feel your tongue softly moving in gentle circles
Around mine.

And I could say how much I loved the touch and taste of your skin,
All of it,
In the palm of my hand,
And on the tip of my tongue,
And that I wanted more of it
In my mouth.


But

There is no way that I could ever say this
With enough clarity and power and purpose
To cut through the acres of bullshit that
Surround as we go through our lives.

So

Why even try to put words together, or to express
Feelings that come from both between my ears and
Between my legs?
I have seen other people try this and they wind up lost in their words,
Swimming through fog,
Never reaching the other side.
Sometimes you just can't say these things.
You have to leave them unsaid.

Narrow

In a dark, narrow room up four steep series of stairs, I
Stumbled inside, unaware that the bed was located a mere
Fourteen inches from the doorway.

After my expression of startled pain (I had smacked my foot against the bed frame) I was curtly informed that
This was a spacious apartment for this part of Manhattan.

I regrouped quickly, apologized, and asked where I should sit, but it
Was obvious that the bed was the place to be.
And so we fell into it, and
Fell out of our layers of winter clothing,
Me out of my snugly fitted black wool jacket and crisp white blouse and
Voluminous dark green silk skirt over
Thin, black kid boots, then
He reached for the fishnet hosiery that encased my legs,
Snowy legs so unused to the elements, and
Suddenly they joined the heap of clothing building on the cold floor of
That narrow Manhattan apartment,
Along with his long-legged jeans, his slightly itchy sweater, his warm,
Inviting cotton T-shirt underneath that
Still smelled so much of his body that
I was now pressed against.

It was a narrow bed in a narrow room in an old, brick building
With those narrow staircases but it was
Wide enough to hold us as we
Tumbled and rolled together,
Back and forth, around and over again,
With the sounds of the city pulsing far below but
All but unheard by us in this moment.

We would sleep there, in his narrow bed, with just a sheet concealing us,
But as you know, those New York apartments always seem so warm,
Even on the coldest nights, and I
Did not need anything but that thin bedsheet and his warm body up against my skin.
I could feel muscle and soft patches of hair on him, and there is no better feeling,
On a winter's morning, with sun suddenly bursting in through an uncovered kitchen window.
(For the bed was in the kitchen; there were scarcely rooms in this warren.)
I could hear his breath ease in and out and softly ruffle my hair as I felt his chest rise and fall with it, A beat and pulse so calming, I could not help but be at total ease,
Yet I knew, deep inside my heart and my mind, that when
We were both awake and alert and facing that sun that was knocking at the kitchen window that
We would not be so at ease with each other.
Although I felt so much that I knew him at this moment,
His taste, his feel, his pulse, his breath, his sound,
I did not know him, and
He did not know me, and
We would part still as strangers,
Walking off into the biting cold morning to
Drink our coffees as two people who
Had never once
Been as one.

The Glass Between

Standing on the edge of a crush of chattering, eager people, I
Drank a glass of prosecco and tried to appear detached
Or lost in thought
When I was actually something between uncomfortable
And bored.

Small talk is tedious enough, but excruciating at high volume and heat.

Someone approached me to introduce himself, as we had met before but
Don't we all struggle at times to place a name with a face in
A crushing crowd in a stifling bar?
I was astonished to find myself rescued, led away to a discreet, cool corner
To talk, to meet new people, to drink more prosecco, enough to spark
A buzz and guarantee a nagging headache the next morning but
I didn't care a whit when the conversation took an unexpected,
Dazzling,
Startling turn.

Yes, I was dazzled by this person who appeared out of nowhere and
Apparently had been right there on the edges
Of my life, all but unnoticed by me, by often myopic me.
It was what he said, and how he said it, with a preface of
Self-effacement, but with an undercurrent of confidence,
And the fact that nobody in their right mind ever says such things,
At least not to me.
Me, not only myopic at times, but fairly skeptical after
So many disappointments, and unused to
Hearing anything resembling a compliment.
Or a declaration.

If my mind had not been fuzzy from the wine (how many glasses had I consumed?)
And the room not been so warm
And my romantic past not been such an endless stretch of empty sandlots

I might not have been so taken aback, so startled, so
Dazzled by things he said,
Deep things, thoughtful things,
Declarations of honest feelings.

I have so rarely heard honest feelings that they stun me into a state which must appear like aloof cynicism to others.

For, apparently, this man had been observing me,
And did not, as the countless men who had come before him
(So many that I have lost count and in fact cannot recall even their names or the shapes of their faces)
Simply found what they observed to be of no consequence.
Apparently, this man had noticed something else, something within.
Within me.

Yes, there were more and more people around us, even close friends and enemies of mine, yet
I did not really notice them, and
They did not see me for some reason.
I was concealed, not by a wall or a curtain but
By this suddenly unearthed force that I
Could neither describe nor understand nor control.
As you might imagine, all the lofty talk sprung from this
Long-buried force turned earthy itself and
I could feel his arm around me, his hip brushing mine, and
It felt natural, as something I had known for a long time, although
It was utterly new and bracing and unfamiliar as well.
I leaned my face close to his to press for a kiss but he wisely declined,
As there were so many eyes around us, and he knew that they might be on us,
Although I was blind to them.


Soon, we were leaving, how and when and why I don't remember, and not saying
Goodbye to anyone, or saying anything at all, and gone into the night, where
We found a quiet place to talk and to kiss and to touch each other's skin, and
There seemed to be promises of more, so much more, that I was, yes, dazzled, but
Then there more, something cloudy, things I didn't really understand.
Once again, I had let myself be caught off guard and swept to the top of a wave, only
To crash down, my nose and mouth and lungs filling with salty water.
I was angry, I was hurt, I was confused, and yet, I knew there was something to this.
I didn't really believe that his words were just drunk words, crazy words, impulsive words.

I couldn't believe that. They had too much force and power.

I stumbled home, upset and angry and hungry, hungry for more than food, and
In the dark, I simply cursed into the still air, but I realized to my surprise that
I wasn't crying.
He had not made me cry.
And I slept, shutting my phone off.
I couldn't think about the lost words,
The fading touches,
The kisses disappearing so rapidly.

Sleep wrapped itself around me like a warm blanket and I fell deeply into a strange dream.
I walked through a maze of buildings and alleyways
Made of brick and stone and concrete and glass.
Some of them seemed familiar, yet they were placed on
Terrain I had not walked before, steep hills and winding valleys.
I approached one of these buildings, a place where I felt I had been before,
Where I belonged,
Where people would welcome me,
And I saw him inside,
Through a sheet of glass.
He looked at me, and his eyes seemed to pull me closer to him, to kiss him once again, but
The glass would not open,
Would not yield.
We would be separated by it
Until we found some way to shatter it and
To step through the entrance and
Fall into each other again.

I awoke suddenly, stunned that the man had actually walked into my dreams and
Made his presence known in my deepest places.
Switching my phone on, I read his messages from the night before, and
Realized that there was indeed a sheet of glass between us, and
That it would stay in its frame for now, for
Only he had the power and placement to break it.
For now.