Poems By Others

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It’s the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was 
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars 
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.
– Jack Gilbert

I never thought Michiko would come back

after she died. But if she did, I knew

it would be as a lady in a long white dress.

It is strange that she has returned

as somebody’s dalmatian. I meet

the man walking her on a leash

almost every week. He says good morning

and I stoop down to calm her. He said

once that she was never like that with

other people. Sometimes she is tethered

on their lawn when I go by. If nobody

is around, I sit on the grass. When she

finally quiets, she puts her head in my lap

and we watch each other’s eyes as I whisper

in her soft ears. She cares nothing about

the mystery. She likes it best when

I touch her head and tell her small

things about my days and our friends.

That makes her happy the way it always did.

death asked me to join him for dinner

so I slipped into my favorite black dress

that I had been saving for a special occasion

and let him walk me to our candlelit tryst.

He ordered a ribeye, extra rare

I ordered two desserts and red wine

and then I sipped

and wondered

why he looked so familiar

and smelled like earth and memory.

He felt like a place both faraway

and deep within my body

A place that whispers to me

on the crisp autumn breeze

along the liminal edges of dusk and dawn

somewhere between dancing

and stillness.

He looked at me

with the endless night sky in his eyes

and asked

‘Did you live your life, my love?’

As I swirled my wine in its glass

I wondered If I understood the thread I wove into the greater fabric

If I loved in a way that was deep and freeing

If I let pain and grief carve me into something more grateful

If I made enough space to be in awe that flowers exist

and take the time to watch the honeybees

drink their sweet nectar

I wondered what the riddles of regret and longing

had taught me

and if I realized just how

beautiful and insignificant and monstrous and small we are

for the brief moment that we are here

before we all melt back down

into ancestors of the land.

Death watched me lick buttercream from my fingers

As he leaned in close and said

‘My darling, it’s time.’

So I slipped my hand into his

as he slowly walked me home.

I took a deep breath as he leaned in close

for the long kiss goodnight

and I felt a soft laugh leave my lips

as his mouth met mine

because I never could resist a man

with the lust for my soul in his eyes

and a kiss that makes my heart stop.