Serendipity Says

We are in this place again; I only know how to swim with ice.
Heat is as painful as light creeping through closed lids--
my hands haven't moved in a year.

you left, as did the Sun; do I hide now from dawn
or is a momentary thaw simply a deeper night,
ice melting to freeze again.

_____________________


I have taken to watching you sit at an outdoor table. You threw kindness
at me -- at least, your smile, though it could have been as ordinary

as a good lunch. I am pasting kindness over a sandwich, because
the heart is starved, looking for a place to alight Her wings, where

She may flit and jibber and enjoy crumbs. I have great need
of solitude, for I have been trampled under foot, shooed away.

I count on those who feed the birds, because love has died
(again, or still dead since the last time) and nothing can sustain me.

So I watch, nobody
other than a kind mystery, a flattering smile, a crust of bread.