In love's mouth, the darkest truths are songs

You were never one for poetry,
But I like to think you saw it in the simple things,
Because you walked the woods that made me wonder as a child,
The ones that made me dream.

And the woods are made of spaces between trees,
Just like a poem is made of spaces between words like these,
And life is made of spaces between people just like you and me--

Spaces through which wind blows and where rain falls
And where people walk at nightfall.
It was in that space I heard you call me home
One final time to tell me what I needed to know:

That alone among all the truths I knew,
There was one like a thin and unsupposing tree that grew
A little taller than the rest and drew
The sun's first rays,

And that was that love can outlive every wrong,
And in love's mouth the darkest truths are songs.

New Wine

I followed your footprints out to the curb
Instead of making my own set of tracks
In the snow. And my feet are smaller than yours,
So they fit exactly into your path,
Like the cork that was snug in the bottle
Of wine til we sprang it the night before.

I suddenly understand what it means
To be new wine poured in old skins,
To drench old leather to the point of bursting.
If I wander outside your tight path of prints
And get in my car with wet feet,
I'll drive home singing.

Naked

We poked our bare shoulders
Underneath the bedroom curtain
To a pink sky at six in the morning.
Sailors would've taken warning,
But in this landlocked city
Where the only water comes from the faucet,
Every dawn looks sad and pretty.

Three years later, I woke up
Tossing and turning
To the first morning without you,
Still mesmerized by the sad and distant sky.