Morning Couplets

I make sure we kiss before sleep, waking, and going to work;
his arms, a solid vice around me, say the new day is okay.

The quiet way she enters, long solid legs touch lightly on grass
with her feminine stance, delicately tasting the leaves.

Sun hitting leaves, and the sporadic rain
glistens on the outer walls of a gray house.

A bird high in the tree, small
and invisible, sings its life.

The clear sharp night makes us
pull our sleeves over our hands, stand closer.

Fallen leaves wait in the yard to be gathered;
their tired, frail bodies brightly finished.

The gray, near-fall morning creeps in, and the only warmth
that brings me out of bed – your lips on my lips – a soft parting with sleep.

I can’t visit the dead; dig into the ground
to shake hands after they have shaken off the earth.

I look for a clean spot on my Kleenex,
summer dribbling from my nose.

A family of deer at dawn,
mama leading her kids to the low branches.