The Fifth Dinner Guest

An unfolding napkin
gently collapsing
into the supporting role
of the evening.

A graceful artifice
faintly subsiding
into the pull and tuck
of the gathering.

The corner of the mouth
softly acquiescing
to the light touch
of fate.

Variation on a Theme

Bruised, black-eyed,
and occasionally splatted
post-cliff.
Perhaps a dog would help
or some other form of crutch.
It might be alright with a cool pair of shades
and certainly the senses seem fine tuned,
but avoid the driver’s seat
same also with shotgun.
Is it a birth defect
or the result of unnatural uses?
(I heard bootleg gin.)
Whatever the case,
love is blind.

How to Change the World

Step 1. Change yourself.
Step 2. Do what you can.
Step 3. Tell other people.
Step 4. Together, complete Steps 1–4.

If at any point you should feel lost, confused, hopeless, or overwhelmed, go back to Step 1.

First Impressions

In some other lifetime,
I smelled like you the next morning.
My heart beat the extra for the walking away.

Once another fall,
the sunlight felt like this,
as I listened to me move within your house.

In a parallel universe,
you leaned in,
and I followed thinking we were going somewhere.

Even better than…

When I meet him, there he’ll be
the big him with the little “h”
for the capital “R” kind of relationship
—a boyfriend by any other designation.
We will have survived our second and third impressions,
slogged through the realities of us,
and successfully emerged in a world
where I can wear that shirt again
and he can introduce me without U.N. translators.