While Walking in a Parade

I look up to see a woman looking down and, because the parade day has now darkened into slates and smokey chocolate browns of city nights, I can see nothing more of her than her silhouette, framed in the fourth storey window - a big square of burnt yellow light.

Then, when a street-to-sky rocket shoots up, explodes, it bathes the brick face of this building in its blues and white. Post-powder silence ensues.

I wave and she nods, turning away from the window. Who is she? Who am I, looking up? I am carried for an instant from my body, through hers, and then back to the street where I find myself holding a piece of a language that seems not to belong to me.

A whistle blows and I walk forward, amidst my contingent dressed in reds and blues, a hundred yards more toward the reviewing stand. Bright lights shine in my face and chase away pursuing shadows.

The parade continues, as before.

Water

A drop of an essential oil descends within you when you, in our first exchange, open. For an instant - rich, honey-tinted - this amber congeals from between the words we share, bearing a sweet nose of our thoughts' wine . . .

You tell me that when you yield to it, this honey-drop of mind and perception sinks way in, that though you are made of water, this penetrating liquid is heavier. Then, with a glance at a time piece, you close again, depart, and the distance of circumstance separates us.

Today, you speak of the water again - quietness of a pool, sweetness and darkness both infused into your bones, flowing in your blue veins - advancing beneath your pale skin.

I observe you place your left hand in your right. You close your eyes. We sit and share a liquid moment- ebbing and rising with the wordless tug of implications.

These exchanges point to what more is possible and how we limit what we imagine.