She's

Blue, brown, and white.
A light laugh and a song. 
Her hands are the dance of this steam.  
Her eyes are lit birds. 
Her neck is draped satin. 
Her voice is a softly touched sweater. 
It comforts me. 

I love her
Because I was given to her.
Because she turned herself. 
Because she's home and wonder,
Rest and sprint. 
Because she's.
And she's.
And she's. 

She's pure purple, shoulder-strong.
Her speech up-summons a world.  
Hands like the earth: earth wearing fruits. 
And her eyes are all of the waves. 
Her neck, the great beam from the sun down. 
Her voice, a clean home with a tree by.  

I rest in it and find her,
And find her,
And find her.
I rest in it and find her,
My lovely,
My rest.

Eating an Apple

I snatch a store-bought
Snack apple from the bowl,
Small, red, and tasteless
Like the ones on the tree I’d
Balance on a sloped sapling rail
Stuck in cement stairs on
Our old hill to pluck from,
But without the dusty taste I loved,
Though, yes, so deeply hued.

A bite: brown veins cut
Through the meat.
Mud-soft craters to the stem.

For some reason, all my third grade classmates
Are watching, suddenly, at red lunch recess tables.
They scream and laugh, and the tallest kid in class,
An orange-haired girl who swoons for Spice Girls,
Standing on my picnic bench, grabs
My apple with an “Ew!” and throws it in a bush.
Our classmates cheer, congratulate her
On my near escape from imperfection, mush, and shame,
And eat their Cheetos, grinning broad.

Here, in great-grandma Marion’s
Pea-green creaky chair,
Looking at my yard, I grin,
And keep biting.

Aspirations

We seem to be followed today
By aspiring broadway stars
Whose aspirations are higher
Than their voices are supple.

I’ll just have to listen to their aspirations.
So much more pleasant,
If less obvious.