Oblique sun,
	end of day —
Sand on sidewalk
	casts perfect needles
	at my feet.

"You must have someone
	from then —
	a trusted aunt or uncle?
	a family friend?
Who might remember
	more clearly,
	more objectively
	what happened?"

No one, not one
	from then
	that I can trust,
	who knew me,
	who won't tell.

You decided not
	to dance,
Instead, toured this
	salty valley
Added your tears to
	our great lake —
Missed us while not
	wanting us —
Thought I missed
	the point,
And didn't know I
	was in the car
	with you.

Last week's flowers wilted,
	petals fell,
	water fouled,
	thrown away with
		scraps of food —

"One bud"
	and she added a fern leaf,
	crinkly wrapper,
	red bow
		and smile —

Warmly taken,
	coldly received,
Rose lies ignored on
	sunny table,
	expanding,
		spreading,
	trying to be seen.

Purple paper comes
	in scores of shades —

An inifinity of purples
	is no surprise —

But paper? ...who needs
	twenty five kinds of fuchsia folios?
I just need plain purple
	and can't find it!

Black-capped bandits
	in from Oregon,
Scattering last year's leaves,
Scaring the cat
	(white as snow lying about him),
Jumping, pausing, darting —
	chaos makers —

"Look, Aelric!",
	then gone,
	daddy's a liar —

What's in that mass
	of cherry limbs
that draws you back
	each year?

First day,
	last month —
White snow,
	black shadows —
Something moves,
	sun freezes my hand.

-- with apologies to Bryan Singer

The worst is remembered longest,
	this cumulative burden
	overwhelms in time —
Such as, my morning angers,
	swirling out of
	evaporating nightmares,
	diaphanous, beloved —
These fifteen minute irritations
	parade twenty four hours
	through your brain
Like typing "Guatemala".

He looked like a stiff wind
	might blow him away,

White hair on
	bent white body,
Wrapped in flannel
	and painful age —

"See that man, Daddy?" —
	Who is he?
"Max, Daddy! That's Max" —
	What does he do?
"I don't know —
	He belongs to the school" —

Suddenly, I fear
	the bricks might crumble
	if Max does not return.

Troll phoned after
	twenty five years
	and asked about the hat —

I happened to be staring right at it,
	recently discovered
	in my child's closet —

A nameless Mexican beaurocrat
	was moved by a tale of the hat
		as gift of a dying lover
		and lost on a train —

He took pity — in two weeks
	a beaten package arrived,
	hat intact —

A Mayan heart believed
	and a lover was realized —

My friend,
	sensing some universal urgency,
	knew it was time to resurect
		this dead young woman,
		never born —

Her love undending,
	shielded me from
	sun and rain.