You Ask When It Ended
Damp leaves skidding under sneakered feet,
whiff of mulchy dampness,
squirrels looking askance, skittering out of the way.
How many months now have I been invisible?
At the door, that many months
of prayer and sympathetic magic brought to bear:
he pulls me to him, mutters in my hair.
Elated -
Agitated -
he takes me upstairs to a guest room, uncurtained facing west -
Hope fading fast as the sun drags down its light.
(c) Sarah Morehouse 2002
Disillusion Idyll
Jagged bits of colonial blue leap from my prying fingernails,
reveal silvering boards.
Someone else’s lilacs
lure bees on sugar-shocked flightplans.
His black mop of a dog
shoulders in to lick my face
as I huddle in a few square feet
calculated out of sight of windows,
unwelcome, unwilling to leave.
Fugitive, voyeur, I listen
to him running the shower, rattling in the kitchen.
His mop-dog has settled down, head in my lap,
wet nose sometimes poking my hand for a scratch,
or maybe he wants a Pringle.
Sunshine in gooey drizzles like orange blossom honey
slow-cooks the porch.
(c) Sarah Morehouse 2002
