For Nikki

I was going to write this poem in third person. Describe what the back story was. The color of your car in my driveway, the sitting, the four hour talk. The topics, the laughter, the smell of coffee in my house long after you left. I was going to write to another audience, the random person who stumbles across this blog or the occasional visitor returning again. I was going to try to make it pretty and clever, try to connect it to the larger landscape of living, somehow wend the way to a lesson.

But what I want to say is this to you: Today, you were more beautiful than I have ever seen you. It could have something to do with your shorter hair, or the just right black drawing out the just right blue in your eyes. But I think it is because you let your heart bleed red in the river of words today. You took your skin off, left it in the trunk of your Subaru, and let your most naked self venture onto dry land.   You were not bound by the need to impress me or be loved by me, or earn something I cannot give you. And, because of that, you impressed me, are more loved by me, and have earned something I rarely give away.

Yesterday, there was a spider stuck between the glass and the Mark Rothco print that sits, framed, on my mantle.  I had no idea how the spider ended up inside the frame, smooshed down, its legs akimbo and useless, but still moving.  Alive somehow in small a space. Today, as we were talking, I looked for the brown dot of the dead spider.  I knew it would be easy to see. There was nothing but the print.  The sunset yellow, the confident orange. Like you, he somehow found a way to wiggle himself free. 

I am reluctant to take your coffee mug from its coaster.  I want it to sit there, next to the big chair, so that I can feel someone else in my house. You inside my house.  Outside my neighbors are talking by the fire pit. I should join them.  Sit in there circle. But I feel full enough, right now. I feel whole enough, right now. 

I am trying to think of a good last line. My friend Maya can always think of one.  That kind of ending that lingers like a strike on a Tibetan bowl. Your poems are found more in the middle, for me.  In the air that fills the bowl maybe. I will simply say this: my house chimes with you, you are still here.  Even though you are 33 miles away, part of you is sitting right across from me, talking to me now.  And for that I am grateful.