Love Beads

Grandma wore bright plastic to town on Friday nights,
Poppy beads, she called them
I could pull them apart with little fingers,
Snap them in, and out, with ease.
Unbreakable, those beads.

Later I passed hippie beads from neck to neck
as we chanted peace and love to one another,
and hung them in streams in doorways,
clicking open as we walked through
and showered back down.

Now I wear two bracelets.
On one wrist, hard pink plastic,
held together with elastic
etched with symbols of romance.
It stretches and adapts.

And on the other, my husband's pearls.
Silk thread weaves through the golden clasp
Elegant against the creamy luster
To work, it must turn all the way around
before it slips in smoothly with a click,

The silk knots around each pearl
Have grown old and I'm not careful.
It weakens with age and breaks.
The pearls drop, bounce and scatter.

Together we look for them, and count,
some have rolled beneath the sofa.
Some clear across the room.
We retrieve what we can find.
Don't worry, he tells me.
They can be restrung.

Lilacs

Lilacs

Their scent perfumes my memory,
Purple, pink and white,
Full beards of the branches
Droop heavy

They bloom only a week or two
So abundant
Armfuls cut from the stems
Leave plenty

I crush the star shaped blossoms
Like damp tears against my cheek
They leave me longing
For home.

poem "what love is"

Come dance with me on cloudspray
Splash froth at my ankles
Let your bare feet sink into the mist,
Soaking in the steam of passion
And leave the world below behind

Come test this featherbed,
pillowed against the azure dawn
Let's taste the nectar, ignite the lightning,
and dissolve into each other, floating,
so light that we become the sky,

Then tie a silken rope swing to the stars;
I'll push you first, then you push me,
with each thrust flying higher,
We will wonder at the colors
that tint the clouds at sunrise,
but close our blinds at night.