Time
It's been a long time since I last touched their lives: The One Lucky, Manny and the Ghost of Charles. It's been a long time since I touched the life of Zigman and those people he wishes he loved. It is true, it's been a long time since they touched my life. But the order of things is for me to decide. For them, perhaps, they wait in pain. Or is it as a concern they wait, as they think the pain is only mine.

Cold
I
A fever was burning my mind. I filled a bathtub with cold water and poured in a bag of ice. I sat and shivered and thought this was a terrible way to die: cold and alone with that burning inside. I got up and dried myself. By morning my sickness was gone. I decided to call a friend.

II
I called my friend, but she wasn't home. I would have told her about icy water and aloneness and a terrible way to die. Instead I went to a bakery shop and sat outside. It was the first day of spring. Across the street I saw yoga silhouettes in the morning sky. Through round windows they looked young and beautiful as they touched their fingers tips. I sipped from my coffee and thought of my friend and wondered if she called, if I would be home.

Survive
Ask the old man what's the matter. He'll tell you the people are broken. Their lives had shattered as thin ice does under a heavy night. Ask the old man if any of us survive. He'll tell you a coldness froze them long ago.

Feet
I saw a crazy woman scrub a street with rags beneath her feet. I asked her what she was doing. She said there was a lie written inside. I thought I understood. But now I wonder, is the lie written inside all of us, or is it in the shuffle of the rags beneath our feet.

Ghosts
I sat in a bakery chair on a early morning. I held a cup of coffee tightly in my hand, as if I was waiting for a woman to walk by. Then she strode beautifully past a window and turned her head. She left her eyes behind.

Years have past, I haven't seen this morning since. But silently I dream of a woman's name. If I could, I'd tell her sadly she left these eyes behind. I'd tell her also of an old bakery as forgotten ghosts, and how we fall with each morning's sunrise.

Years
On Friday nights these men played poker, and gambled their stories away. Unless it was too personal. Or was revealing of what they truly thought...or felt...or spoke to how much they lost. So for years they made up tales. For years they kept poker faces. And through all their Friday nights, they didn't know any true names. Nicknames like the badger...the horse...the rabbit...the wily fox...strong as an ox. Of the men who owed each other money, one kept score inside. He wondered often about the hand he was dealt and why he was called the Fox.

Now
I wish I could swim
I wish I weren't drowning in two inches of water
My arms so strong on steady ground, I sink deeper into darkness
These lungs filling slowly, one drop at a time, this breath in gasping sorrow
Help me from these inches of water, like murky enemies I can't see
I am drowning, I know
Once I was strong, but now I am sinking breathless
If only I could swim
If only I hadn't stumbled into this murky shallow water

Winds I
I walked alone in a forest of broken trees
A bitter coldness left me brittle and afraid
I thought a heavy wind would break me in two
As what happened to the tall pine. And what happened to a fallen God I knew as strong.
But in all this I mended in sorrow a disbelief: against a brittle cold and heavy wind

Winds II
I drifted into a dream, like a slow river in a summer scene
The calm was different than the cold winds above
The trees were maples, fragrant with leaves as sweet green
Will I awaken to broken pines, against coldness and heavy winds?
Best to live this dream, to take a swim in a soft summer stream
Belief and disbelief won't matter
What does is to wonder
And to sing to the maple tree under a brilliant sun