Two Poems

“Heat Lightning”

Heat lightning draws me from my bed
Into the hazy, humid night.

First it shimmers through miles of fog,
Then it flashes proud and bright, and

Pinkish blue and blueish gray surround me,

Silently revealing
What is sky and what is cloud,
If only for an instant.

I think of you, not too far west,
Where lightning comes with thunder.
I always knew our souls were storms,
But now I’ve seen another kind,
Not clamor, but orchestra, 

Soft and distant.
Love without fear—I see it now!—
Love without fear, and light without sound.



“Deer”

Do you remember the deer that we saw
the evening we walked through the woods?
And do you remember the moment we shared
when all of us stopped, breathless, and stared,
and god, could you feel how the weight in the air
was like something we all understood?

But you were afraid, and so both of us left—
But deer couldn’t hurt us, I said.
You still were uncertain, like somehow you knew
that something was missing, broken, askew.
But we’ll make it work, I swore that to you,
and I guess for a while we did.

I saw them again on the night before last—
I stood there still as a stone.
One kept on grazing, the other just watched,
and saw in my eyes someone naked and lost.
Then she leapt out of sight at the sound of a cough,
and left me there standing alone.