by Linda Woolven

November Storm

A deep shaking
rips the ground,
tearing through trees,
as thunder
torches and touches
with its intimacy.

The grey clouds
spit, tentative as first,
driving in the gloom
of late November.

As a shy wind
gathers force,
whirling a
mantle of slanting rain,
strangling
and suffocating
as it chokes the ground
with its water.

Trees blacken and etch
the sky
with hard edged limbs,
forgotten, in the deep shadows,
as the stars submerge
and drown,
one more time.

It is as if the Gods are angry,
withdrawing
all light, all warmth,
leaving the world
lost
and abandoned,
swallowed
in the blackness.

Night Time Lovers

Silhouettes of charcoal
come alive
in the pale moonlight
as amber touches
and hi lights my lover’s
nose, hands and hair
and joins the auburn in his
brown hair,
as he moves in his naked body
around the room.

He is casual in his movements.

It is long past midnight,
and he is roaming as he usually does.
restless,
unable to sleep.

He makes his strong
black coffee,
and holds his mug in
his large hands,
hands that have just
finished love making,
and his
coffee is as well
made as that was,
strong and aromatic.

His socks lay close by me on the floor
looking like bits of him discarded,
but I know he will crawl back
into them,
as into me.

Sweetening the bitterness of his
coffee
in the sheets and sweat
we will make,
clinging to each other at
the desperate moment,
his an: “I love you,”
me: a rush of release.

Then he will hold me,
and I won’t fight it
waiting for him
to quicken once more.

We create
an exercise in movement,
stilled only by the morning’s hunger
and my need for sleep.

And we will sleep like that,
a warm wet brew,
fermenting in each other’s
deepest wounds,
each the other’s
deepest connection.

Laundry Day

She folds his underwear
wondering when he wore them
what he felt,
as he sat in the lunchroom,
feeling looked at, nervous,
shaking,
eating his sandwhich
alone with his paper bag
his thoughts racing over each other
too fast to notice
but quick enough
to excite panic.

She feels the sweat
that trickled there,
down his back,
into his crease,
all washed away now in
today’ s laundry.

A Saturday of belonging at home,
a Saturday of being ok with himself,
a Saturday already dreading Monday,
all the days of the week
on the outside,
and he with his closet
full of fears,
of failure,
of rejection,
of his utter aloneness.

She moves to his socks next.
they could be almost anybody’s,
they walked with him,
carrying his sorrows
his weight,
wearing out,
and hurting his toes, the soles of his feet,
as all of ours do
if we walk in the world long enough.