Eight or Eighty

at eight he trusted
everything about her

sheets slapped
happily cool,
taunting the heat,
heavy like cheeks
reddened with fever

lavender soap
melted, dripping
like petals onto
a vegetable garden
of beans and beets
tossed against the
porcelain, vibrant
like a summer salad

he held his breath,
toes splayed like
tubers spreading
across the bottom
of the pond

rooted there,
he felt safest

her hair gossamer
above him, eyes
a prairie’s bluest sky,
calmly watching over

at eighty,
he saw the yellowed
grasses wave

and willed her return
like a child begging
the rain to stop

an orphan adrift;
longing for home -

finally she came -
hands in her apron
reaching for a cinnamon;
he folded into her

behind his eyes
the bubbles rise,
escaping to the surface

again beneath
the fondest smile

heather r. reed 011006

Exposure

the eye that
is my mind
blinks;

a camera's
shutter I can't
control

unfiltered, captured
committed before
there's time to
turn away

internally,
I am part darkroom

processing, soaking
sifting in solution

with resolution
comes clarity,
without -
the pain of
wasted effort

beauty lost,
what I might
have learned
vanished, erased

still the absence of
remains;
committed to
my internal paper