Remember April, 1969

I am somewhere among the folds of red lanterns in Vietnam
and in the sound of my mother’s moans as you made love.
I linger in the recesses of your mind
like smoke from your very last cigarette.
As long as you live you can never forget me.
I know this;
and in a way it is a comfort.
I am an unwanted nuisance of tangles of memories;
like strings of colored lights after years of Christmases gone.
I am there,
still and knowing.
There are times when I can remember your hands;
large and unyielding and rough, like your heart.
There are times I can remember your voice;
drunken and deep, with a Jersey drawl (if there is such a thing)
and I wish things could have been different,
yet stay the same.
It is a safe place...
one in which you and I know all to well.

In the Leaving

"In the Leaving"
was the title of a poem I wrote once
but never even finished it
or ever began it really,
because I could never
truly imagine
life without you--
an expanse of dark and time;
like being wholly
separated from God.
You are my savior of sorts
and "In the Leaving" fills me
with a silent knowing,
yet it can still mystify me
like the line of a song I cannot remember,
but it's just on the tip of my tongue...