an ode to the childish thoughts. the other day, as a natural victim to a blocked nose, i had this thought. i’m sure if i look it up there’s a perfectly appropriate justification. but i didn’t look it up. i sat with the silliness of such a thought, and i enjoyed the wonder of such simple curiosity. i will keep wondering why my ears don’t breathe.

Caress, his wrinkled finger along the lobe of her ear
earrings dangling, lingering silver.
Silvered moon, crescent and virtually extinct
extinction of her perfume as they dance
dancing, my mother in the lead.
Leading father, his fingers round the fabric, feel its texture at her waist
wasted. Wasted at the thought of her
her hair which parted, bridge a space on her furrowed forehead
forehead to kiss.
Kiss her again
against a pretence of obligation.
Obliged to love her and be
be her lover, though his love for her not the same.

this poem what i perceive are the two stages of marital love – initial lust and aged comfort. the transition of when the initial half of the poem leaks into the latter is blurry, as are the boundaries of when lust ages to comfort.

From a hint of petrichor on its collision with the dirt,
to a mumble in the streets and a damp sidewalk,
I conjure your memory.
I imagine you, only a boy enslaved in the body of a man, as he guides his niece down a memory,
hauntingly familiar.
In awe of unscathed innocence, gently observant of its coarse,
a strange joy conceives a moment, ignorant of consequence
soiled sandals didn’t spare her toes, the tips of her pants bathed in rain,
all five of her fingers manage their way round one of yours.
You yearned for the youth age deceived you was absent,
there was a wisdom laced in her crooked vocabulary
you loved her a little more,
When you saw yourself in her blithe.

She told me I look beautiful when I cry.
Flushed cheeks of velvet and puddled eyelids
did I really look beautiful mother?
At my feet saw an orbit of tears pooled beyond a horizon
the pale waters distorted, but I finally looked like you
To watch my reflection in the foreign symmetry of your face
left me bewildered.
Did you too find a twisted solace in quiet cries?
Mother, how don’t you see that beauty you found in my sunken eyes
to see it for you?

the gutted feeling of seeing the strongest person you know refuse to surrender to her pain, when she too, taught you the beauty of release. a concept introduced to me by my father talks about viewing conflict with people as mirrors, reflections of that internal conflict.