Life on the Installment Plan

I have never owned my life
—it’s all on loan from the Universe anyway—
choosing instead to pay
periodically
for packages to be delivered and
opened, like Pandora’s box
setting free the next mysterious chapter.

Still paying gratefully for what
I purchased in the past
still in debt to the present
the future hasn’t been ordered yet
I’ve always been an impulse buyer.

Only in the rear-view mirror
can I see it all unfolding
with antic connectedness
and random digressions.

The old goat in me is still alive
still sniffing the electric scent
of the next best thing
in and out of love
anarchic
rebelling against boredom.

Still setting out on voyages by moonlight,
I catch my eye in the mirror
and think “not bad, you old pirate.”

Neptune’s Song

A raindrop on my window, then another
they touch and merge so easily
once-separate surfaces
now shared and singular.

You lie on me; I breathe your breath
see your sight
hearts beat together, atoms touch
but soft skin will not yield.

Leave your body. I’ll leave mine
and we’ll be raindrops
touch, merge, make a single ocean
evaporate by our own heat

Return to heaven
start again.

Post Breakup Writer’s Block

No words
no combinations of words
no ideas—no thoughts at all
then and when erased
banished by the impact of now

Nothing in the tool kit
but platitudes, conclusions
time-worn adjectives—like that one—
hackneyed expressions, aphorisms
things said that, on further thought
need to be said differently
or can’t, really, be said at all.

The dry dust of instant coffee
in the bottom of my cup
no scent, no aroma, no feeling, no life
no steam without the boiling water.