Eleven Roses

that shine with a breath
of crimson warmth
on two lives separated by love.
And reminds Eros
that what you find in the
modern roar of affection can be
as tender and as powerful
as the echo of the
very first kiss.

To see you in the breeze
leaning against tomorrow,
or sitting across from dreams
sharing lunch,
are thoughts I caress
between the hours of my seamless stare,
my nude expression
and my sharpest pride.

The dances I could write for us,
the timesteps you could choreograph.
The last verse we’d forget the lyrics to,
and the nights would sparkle forever.

Today still comes all at once,
struggling to bring the dynamic
and outrageous smile it had yesterday.
An impatient sheath
clings the way we speak,
of how inaccessibly special it all is.
And how to slice the world
into bite-size pieces.

Our invisible junta
waits for more patriots.
More hands to wring ideas,
and more voices to help the crusade
as we seize the grips of life
and bring the passion of the moment to a boil.
Then we’ll plant the flat that laughs
at the ones that imagine the damage done
when beauty takes a stance,
instead of a pose.

You’re reading this late at night,
before you left the day
race back over you;
cursing how long it’s been
since the heat of exhilaration
threatened to enhance the week.
Never let the days shape
your idea of entertainment
or let yourself stray too far from Eden’s aim.
One vote of confidence,
one masque of perfect strength,
and once case of crystallized scars
I’ll hide in the attics of Spain for you.

Eleven roses.
Just a breath of crimson warmth,
just a footnote for what it’s like
to keep reaching for Isis,
to keep reaching for life herself.
Just nearly a bouquet.

And maybe,
one day,
you’ll let me buy you a dozen.

— May 10, 1982

Even after I went to college I still found myself thinking about one of the Robin’s I loved in high school who had stayed in Seattle and went to the UW, so I decided to send her some roses out of the blue. We hadn’t spoken in ages and I had heard she had a boyfriend so I thought I’d only send her eleven roses and tuck in this poem I wrote for her as well. I was in Seattle the next weekend and dropped in on her unexpectedly one night with a couple of friends right when she and her family had just heard that her father had missed his connecting flight and no one knew where he was. He eventually turned up and was okay, but at the time I realized that not only the only support I could offer was moral, but simply my presence may have been beneficial to her at the time, but I also realized what a foolish thing it was to drop in unexpectedly on someone I cared so much for whom I knew had a boyfriend, even though it was in the midst of a “crisis.” I never simply dropped in on someone I knew ever again. A year or two later her father started his own pub at the base of Queen Anne hill, “Arthur’s Pub,” and the first time I went in there Robin was there and we spoke for an hour or so. That was the last time I saw her. Years later her father sold the pub and it became the infamous Romper Room.