Departures

All I see are the twisted eccentricities of the world, The wind beaten old aspen reflected in the glass of the Screen door, distorting your face as you wave goodbye For the third time today, And not for the last. Warrens of barren branches like lace against the blue sky, Budding, but it’s still winter. Winter, When will you come? Sky, stop going brown at the edges where our world encroaches on the Heavens. I don’t know what blue looks like anymore. A red, rusty wheelbarrow turned on its side in a sad, gray front yard Spilling out children’s toys, sinking into the dirt. A woman’s sad face, peeking out a window, grey hair in curlers, Still longing to be beautiful. Did your children leave you? Did they grow up and say the words you dreaded? I’m leaving. I’m going somewhere else. I want to be free. Someday, that’ll be me, But I don’t want to hurt you. Throw away my toys when I’m gone. When I look at myself in the mirror, my eyes look different, No longer as blue, glassy and empty, The eyes of someone lost. Do I really care so little? My mouth smiles, And that’s all that matters, I guess, Because people look at the mouth, not the eyes. It takes more to look at the eyes. But I want them looked at. I don’t what to hide, I want to unfold. I want the sky to stay blue. I want to trees to keep their leaves all year. I want innocence to stay and drive away the hurting. I want to stop seeing your hand, waving. I don’t want to see your lips through a screen door, Whispering “bye”. I want you to call me in the middle of the night, just so I can hear your breath. I want to feel the wind and nothing else. I want to remember what the constellations look like. I miss you, even though I’ve never met you, Just seen your face in the passenger window of a blue Subaru as I Waited at the stoplight on 13th South and 5th East, you know the one? I hate that light. I miss the desert, the red expansion of rough stone and dust, Looks easy to crumble in my hands, And the sunlight that turns it to moving fire at dusk, under the expanse of blue sky, Yes, that’s blue. The photographs I see of it in coffee shops here aren’t right. I miss it. The smell of onions frying is like Japanese art is like violin music in my ears is like The Gulf of Mexico is like oil, oil, oil, is like the lingering taste of sweet coffee is like The crackle of pages in a badly bound book is like Scattered receipts spilled from my bag is like The sound of your voice telling me you’ll be home soon is like The groan of the car in the driveway is like My dreams are like Today.