To Forty, With Love

Surprising is the sentiment that sisterhood brings

To a life once thought to be full.

It turns out that the sister-less are, after all

Without a love most pure and wonderful.

A sister-in-law, to be clearer just here,

Is an especially delightful kind.

Born from the love of the love of her life

And the blind puppy love that began mine;

Matured through the freedom to laugh and to cry

At said love, both with him and without.

But it doesn’t stop there, no one is safe

For she knows my family inside and out.

This gift and small curse she bears gracefully

Though perhaps I’ve been sort of short-sighted.

Maybe sisters aren’t always so perky and fun,

Pretty, witty, clever and open-minded.

I do know Jen though, with her warm eager eyes,

Inquisitive and mischievous smile.

She’s been the best sister I could possibly have

Invariably, through life’s greatest trials.

I hope to be as strong, sweet and patient as her,

For all of the rest of my days.

So with eternal love, humility and gratitude

I wish her the best of birthdays.

.

Neruda’s Love Poems – Rewritten

I love your feet
only because they walked
upon the earth and upon
the wind and upon the waters,
until they found me.

in the skin of the grapes
I thought I touched you.

do not take from me your laughter.
when your laughter enters
it opens for me all
the doors of life.

in the spring, love.
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for.
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.

on waking, your mouth,
come from your dream,
gave me the taste of earth,
of the depths of your life,
and i received your kiss
from the sea that surrounds us.

Hide me in your arms
just for this night.

Let the wind rush
crowned with foam,
let it call to me and seek me
galloping in the shadow,
while I, sunk
beneath your big eyes,
just for this night
shall rest, my love.

in the night and the shadow,
with your steps will enter
perfume’s silent step

But wait for me,
keep for me your sweetness.

we shall always be, you and I,
alone upon the earth
to begin life.

with you I become again
the earth that you are:
I know again how I am born.

you came to my kisses with the fire
of an unchained meteor
you melted in my blood

all thirst ends in our embrace.

pure, with the purity we created

You were a little leaf
that trembled on my chest.
Life’s wind put you there.

spring
offers us the sky,
but the dark earth
is our name

Bring your substance deep down to me,
heavily,
let your existence cut across me

lineal strings
inheritance of smoke.

a surge of water with remnants of the sea
strikes the silences that wait for you

Advance in sweetness

That is why you are endless

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A Café in Paris

She sat staring at the cars driving by on the busy thoroughfare in front of the café, diagnosing what makes pretty people so mean. She’d been a hostess at the theater’s café for the 52 days since it had been open, and she could write a thesis on all the theater-going Miamians that she had come to encounter. It was a complicated trifecta of events: 1. a limited number of seats serving cooked-to-order food, 2. a fixed theater time to which no one could be late, and 3. no reservations. During the blissful moments when she sat outside and enjoyed her cappuccino each night after the show started, she outlined the thesis in her head.

Part One: Bling

The more the bling the meaner the women. This is especially true the older they are or the prettier.
A pretty young woman with more diamonds than fat content is likely to tell you how bad you are at your job, how horrible the establishment – that she’s been in for about 45 seconds – is run, and how dumb you specifically are. Make her wait for some avocado toast and a glass of malbec and you’d better steer clear, she’s looking to take people down hard and dirty.

Next, are the over-seventies. The men are quiet and polite most of the time. They look at you with the sad eyes carrying a lifetime of resignation. Those eyes paired with a blinged-out bluehair, that’s a code red. Abort. Once you engage, it’s going to be a lengthy, degrading conversation that will make you want to walk into on-coming traffic.

Part Two: Bachelors

This is a grey area. You might get a nice guy who will happily settle for drinks at the bar. You might get a quiet type who evaluates the scene on his own and politely smiles as he leaves. More often than not though, they will be unable to understand why you can’t pull a table out of your back pocket for them, or a burger, or a Ferrari. The entitlement is startlingly limitless.

Part Three: Stragglers

These people knowingly show up 15-30 minutes before the show, appalled that you don’t have something they can “grab.” When handed a glass of water, one straggler once said, “Well, fit it up all the way at least, I’m thirsty for crying out loud.” Because clearly, her thirst and untimeliness, are your fault, so just be gracious, this is America.

Part four, she thinks, relishing the last sip of her cappuccino, wherein I move to Paris and am perfectly, carelessly rude right back.