Allen M. Weber

Just Another Tuesday Morning

Within a candid moment, I thought
how I like it when she moves
about the house in various stages of
undress. In those open hours,

confessed desires are easy,
salted. Sometimes she’ll sigh
how calmed she is when
I am near her, and I am moved

to say something like: me too.
Instead, I may smile and sip my secret
(whiskeyed) coffee. You see,
once she is dressed for the day,

I am responsible for my own
comfort. Maybe layered cloth, and
shoes that hurt her worried feet,
conspire to cover what should be

exposed: Though we inch, daily,
towards dying, our bodies are still
warm; we get what we need; life
is enough, when it’s simple.

This is how our love will be

I'm never sure just where
you are in this settling house,
too big now, too hollow for two;

we share less often
our destinations; our wants
direct us to different rooms,

and once there we prefer
to save words for matters
more pressing than routine

acknowledgement. Reconciled,
I sink into your grandmother's chair,
read poetry, and turn remembered pages

reluctantly. Over the metrical tick-
tink from various buttons and snaps
of tumbled laundry—still,

things must be dried and put away—
I can hear Paul Simon sing:
This is how our love will be.

Bones of Our Making

Past her facade of Victorian walls, lies
a beaten path of bittered loam, bearing
silent witness to innocent hands, ardor
unplanned. Beyond over-wrought gates, aspens

sliver a blue crescent; wind delivers a shiver
along the sharp, encircling brush of her finger-
shaped lake, where no trace of her swollen wake
ever betrays her passing once this way. In vigil,

black granite at her water’s edge, still
cradles the wailing bones of our making.
Anxious fauna listen, find no voice
to answer the echo of his cries.