I'm miss seeing you

I miss seeing you spill onto a white screen
telling me things you have kept inside,
things you have seen but not shared with me,
thoughts that run through your mind
we should talk about this
about why you are silent
was it that I ignored you, always listening
to other voices, focusing on ideas that
have nothing to do with the sounds around me,
the rustling of trees or the plants in the garden,
they are trying to talk to me, too.

give me the cash

My friend, Gloria

I think we met on the boat dock at MIT

on that blustery morning, that morning where our

boat overturned in the Charles River.

Friends for life.

She kept sailing.

Forty years later, she's rowing,

back to violin,

and me, back to flute, avoiding boats

and water.

we look young, don't we, at 58 and 60,

our happiness at being together 

shaves off the years.

Traveling to Europa

in bed at 1 p.m.
finally arising at 6 p.m.
slightly more human, enough to eat salmon
cheese, salad, drink wine, walk a drunken block to
the park, only to collapse again.
such an epic journey to Europa
the lack of air knocked me
back for a
punch.

they all lined up

they all lined up to cast the first stone
to put up the largest fence, their faces red
with the exertion of fear and hatred, calling for
separation of families at the border, for a crying child
to be wrenched from her mother's arms.
they shout in self righteous clamor, keeping their
own children close, as if someone were
about to take them away.

what happened to my poems

what happened to the poems that used
to flow from my fingertips,  the words that
ran like rivers that would never run dry,
what happened to the eagerness to write,
the compulsion, when a day didn't end right
unless words were its witness
what happened to all that and to music
drifting out my window every summer
evening, what happened to my poems
I must find them again.