Like some dark frail bird
she quivered and fluttered
there at my door
one dark cold Advent night,
swearing to return
come the new year
with a photo of Brandenburg Gate.
Arms, hands, fingertips, eyes,
then nothing between us
but electrified space –
her light tread descending the steps –
my heart drawn downward
by the diminishing sound.
Sometimes still my heart is snared
between winter
a swirling hem
and Brandenburg Gate
and I write a letter
which will never be mailed
to Karin.
Categories:
karin, december, farewell, feelings, lost
Form: Free verse
Coal-brown smoke smudged lightly
with hesitant fingers
into the wet grey sky at the edges,
a yellowing of dried grass
scattered with copper berries
fallen from their vines,
a leaf spinning crazily on a breeze,
a tentative parting of fingertips
and a face turned slightly from mine –
a profile obscured by dark hair –
and eyes scan and count the pylons
for something to do.
The match flares, hissing in the silence,
and a cigarette is shared quietly
to still the noise inside
over this,
our goodbye
Categories:
karin, farewell, goodbye, imagery, lost
Form: Free verse
I called you my Magyar princess
because of your smoldering eyes
and dark hair but maybe you were
just a woman
who knew how to disappear
while standing still.
I got your number from
your grandfather five years
after you left on a trip
to visit the Brandenburg Gate
with a promise to return
in the spring.
A Florida area code,
and a man’s voice I didn’t know
picking up on the second ring.
He said you were at work at the club
and I wondered if he meant
you were an exotic dancer.
I didn’t know what to say
so I held the line for a moment,
listening to someone else’s breath
and then let it go, setting
the phone down gently
as if you might still hear.
I never tried calling again.
Some silences are too complete
for interruption, and you were
always good at leaving
before the questions started,
so I’d learned to stop asking.
I still think of you sometimes,
when the light shifts a certain way.
Your name drifts through me,
not painful, just unfamiliar,
like something once known by heart
then misplaced in another room.
Categories:
karin, farewell, lost love, memory,
Form: Free verse
It looked just like a coaster—
a membrane of soft plastic,
yellow, green and cobalt blue,
the colors swirling at your touch,
like it could feel something too.
I did not know ‘til later,
that it also reflected you.
I thought it just a trinket,
a trick of vinyl and hue,
given not with coy delight,
but offered straight and true.
It changed when touched
(just like a heart)
and maybe so did you.
Like heat that leaves no mark,
you slipped across my skin—
a shimmer, then a fading,
too fleeting to box in.
You moved like light through water,
and left me changed again,
before the stillness flowed.
I no longer chase the shimmer,
or try to name its shade.
Some things are meant to vanish,
but not before they stain.
You left no mark I can point to—
only the ache that still remains
when I remember you.
Categories:
karin, beauty, blue, green, lost
Form: Rhyme