Fog on a Sunny Day

Take your hot jealousy and your aloof distance,

your bitterness and jade-colored lens filters

and toss them into the ocean, one piece

at a time, let the water have them.

For them I have no use.

 

I will be over here

I will be over here

learning to dance with two left feet in the waves

taking a chance again on trust

learning to love the tides again, the burn of

the day and the softness of a lover’s eyes

by lamplight; those times we suspended

dreams in mid-air by nothing more

than the power of suggestion. The promise

that unpowered flight will be achieved

within my lifetime. That something held

gently in the palm of one’s heart can be

examined with the tenderness of angels,

the introspection of fog

on a sunny day.

 

Remember that possession only works

if the one possessed desires it-

otherwise, it is assimilation

of another’s private home

in the desert of desire, the subjugation

of the fire in damp spaces where

the flame longs to light but is subdued

as unsatisfying smolder. 

 

I am ready for this solitude to turn from

waiting into action. I have loved each

in his own fashion, as best such a woman

can. But tell me, why so much fear

to love a woman in the style of her own

desire? Is she too much ocean in too

small a teaspoon? Too grand an aria

that she violates the solemnity

of all the world’s cathedrals?

 

While you build your walls and hone

your skills at disappearing- behind

critique, in front of television glass,

under the ice of a fine glass of best scotch-

I will be over there

I will be over there

falling in love over and over again

every day anew, until someone looks

at me and also sees eternity

in their lover’s gaze. So many

have asked, many have taken. So few

gave something  back.

 

I am selfish- I do want it all. I want

you to teach me to dance in the streets

and rain and sea foam; I want

Italian operas and to be fed chocolate

by your hand; I want to be allowed

to want, I want to be missed but not

smothered. I want to let my fire shine

like a beacon in your night, I want your

star to hang my secrets; I want you to

curious enough to learn

my secrets and why they became secrets.

 

I will be here, waiting for you

to take this hand and hold it to the light

examine my veins, see my age- want

me anyway. See how my fragility

can be peeled away to show my strength,

or was it the other way around? I

cannot recall, sometimes, exactly how

the moon wanted to be loved;

when the greedy sun devours her

she can think only of the art of

being consumed, slowly,

as sand melting into the waves. We are

after all, only so much as we see

when we stop fearing to step

into the water again.

Author's Note

This is another piece I originally wrote in Spanish, and translated into English. It is simply about being ready to take a chance on a love that is not possessive or controlling or motivated by fear. It is about reiterating what we want as women, and setting ourselves up to receive it,not apologie for it, and tell anyone who tells you what love "should be," to simply go to hell.

Photo is my own, taken from in front of my home, at sunrise. It was one of my favorites of 2016.