Underwater/in another world/wondering/where I can process air/away from the pollution of hatred/the benign neglect of avoidance/the faltering falsehoods of ritual impotence/under this surface/we breathe free/or so it seems

Waiting/on the stoop/tired of pictures/tired of hair bows/ready to play/ready to go/ready to run and play/waiting/learning the fine art/of patience/on the stoop/on the summer day/waiting

Grateful for love’s inheritance/we cross miles/cross oceans/travel/for the sake of love/surprised we meet/create new holy memories/honor the ancestors in each other’s eyes

Just one precious friend/allows mind and heart/sustaining perceptions/loving acceptance/succor from a long arduous voyage/from entirely different worlds/just one forever friend/finds in you strength/to keep beginning again/in love

He undertook/after a great deal of thought/and study/a particular job/to do it/to do it right/first/ to lay cement with all the right steps and mixtures/to craft gradients/that would landscape our foundation/for life/it was the elements that raged/out of control/that slowly cracked/what strong brown hands/leveled and smoothed into place

Some images fade/love wends our way/through the off road/insisting on taking chances/the love that we once knew/is not afraid of/indeed resides within/the light

Shine shoes/brush fedora hat/fold handkerchief/to geometric pleasure/these duties incorporated into life/newspaper devoured/bridge game played/east/west/north/south/horoscope/jumble/and the phone rang/sisters in another borough/faithful in duty another way of love/competed to gloat/who completed the jumble/solved the puzzle of the day/first

On time/I want to run outside and shout/world/on time/soon/she’ll be in the house/in these arms/and we’ll dream up some/wishes/soon/I’ll do what mothering/stored up/blasts off/like the new engine/ that needs no fuel/my molecules/vibrations/of love/will take us to the moon

I knew her/not as a child/but as a motherly crony/friend of my mother/ beloved goddaughter/of my father/there were times when/a giggle/a certain look/made me believe the child/that was/knew the brightest/youngest love of my father/that love stored in years/years we never knew/could only imagine

He learned Spanish/also Papiamento/also Dutch/learned to type overnight on a broken typewriter to get a job/in Curacao/so it was natural/to go from boarder/to family friend/to family/to Delio/revered Godfather/ the families/children/adored his generous loving and kind presence/arriving from distant shores/he held on to relationships like a sailor lashed to the boat/in life’s storm