white punctuation

white punctuation where did the minutes go? we held hands and laughed at nothing because nothing mattered as we traveled into the safeguard of night darkness was a friend dressing us like a single wool blanket pulling us together at the shoulders tugging at our hearts there… basking in warmth co-mingling tears defined us we wanted to blend with the sea but chasing foaming water and skinny-legged sandpipers went the way of retreating waves and we chased the nighttime fog until our weary bodies had fallen overhead gulls caught swirling breezes slicing through the darkness like white punctuation on a sky filled with paragraphs left for interpretation and as quickly as they appeared they were gone like minutes of our lives we traveled light, allowing for an open door and when gulls squawked as if mocking the burdens that we bore it seemed that their freedom was a beckon call and as you looked back over your shoulder, i waved. perhaps we had not learned in our youth what we now know about sandcastles and ocean waves the darkness of drooping nighttime skies and white punctuation separating words that really matter. we were careful that we did not step on sand dollars and that wave-polished driftwood could tell a story about where it had been your hands were warm, even on winter nights your lips comforting and always inviting the ebb and flow of the moment lingered and was both changing and unchanging sharing borrowed kisses while standing in cold ocean water were moments stolen and hidden away, moments never lost and yet somewhere in time they lost us memories are gathered through moments, stored in special places of the heart, then later retrieved memories are born in times of white punctuation © tolbert