Stories from L.A.

        The Poetry Page

An Other Woman


I dream in color,
inchoate deja vu:
brightly lit room,
your lips against mine,
my fingers tracing
the lines of your chest.
Once, a rendezvous in a park,
your hands full of flowers
–bright red carnations–
lead me to a bench.
And I wake.

I possess nothing,
claim nothing,
exist only as a sidebar:
pleasure taken surreptitiously.
I write poetry, dream,
imagine your fingers
tangled in my hair
pulling me toward you.

I wait for a sea of change,
some stunning feat of
deus ex machina
that wraps the impossible
into a bow-tied happy ending.
But even as I whisper
my love-lorn confessions
into the darkness, I know
I am but one ghost in this machine
and I possess no miracles.

December, 2003