The Right Answer

The Right Answer

Once you asked me about when it was
I knew I loved you. Vaguely I answered
citing a time when we danced so close.

I recalled your perfume, what you wore.
The joke of the night, and what you drank.
The song that a wannabe Robert Plant sang.

Truth be known, it was about the books.
If you were locked up for a year, food supplied...
your instant reply, Library, won me over.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc., 2010

Not With You

Not With You

I think it comes from boredom. Or hot weather.
You've probably noticed that I'm not good at it.

Correction. I am a professional. The best. But
not with you -- no. When you drop the gloves?

I want to pick them up for you. I'm not there.
Bareknuckle fisticuffs? All the more, I'm undone.

It must be so difficult for you to fight with me.
To argue with someone while they eat your spit.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

Further Than The Garden

Further Than The Garden

Just beyond it are deer. Two of them, munching
what is rightfully theirs. Defying no fence, and
asking for nothing more, making no sound.

They were doing this before either of us noticed.

Where are the binoculars? No, the camera! I said.
And you slapped my arm, Shush! Let them be!
Ouch, I fell upon you laughing, as they looked up.

We were doing this before either of them noticed.

Ciprianowords, Inc., 2010

Two Drinks

Two Drinks

There. The deck chair and the blue towel. Your book.
Isabel Allende. But [he sets them down] you. Gone.

And scans everywhere at a glance. Paba Tan spf 15.
Cap open. Guy selling hats. Calypso music. Sand.

You should be -- you should be -- she should be --
And a sound, a laugh he knows in the ocean, laughs.

The sun clips the water, the very wave swallowing her
promises him. She is here. She will drink this, with me.

c. Ciprianowords Inc., 2010

Your Book

Your Book

Reading two different ones we leaned against
the root-entwined trees. Under the same sun,
different branches, shading.

I asked if you were enjoying yours. You nodded
without turning to me. I set mine down. A cloud
just then, reminded you of me.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc., 2010

Ceremony

Ceremony

During a certain portion I fell out of my depth.
It was not only how the fans were waving
or the foreign gibberish. I could deal with that.
Two things threw me further than I was able
to reel myself in. Your scent and your eyes.

Something like lilacs would smell to someone
who had never been near any. And above all
more than anything, the way you turned as the
tea was poured into my cup. The host asked me
to stand, but I was falling, shoeless, face-first.

Onto a planet
where no lilac, pink-purple, ever bloomed.

c. Ciprianowords Inc., 2010

Moth To Flame

Moth To Flame

The hinge of his mind a rusted gate latch
scratched shut as the moon drew his eye.
Hand in hair, the swaying branches push
him from his table to let the wind twist the
empty page. Wax fell -- and is still falling
from the near side of the candle. This one.

This fire that struck the moth, fluttering in.
Window opened, his muse was not long
in the telling -- What we most desire shall
consume us, and the having take us whole.
This he wrote, newly inspired. An unhinged
man, turning vellum o'er the charred wings.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc., 2010