Unpromised affection
Physical touch apart
From bedtime or goodbye
Yearning for hands to slide
Around me while doing
An ordinary chore
Transforming the mundane
Loveliness now defined
A breathless connection
Keeping us together
Forever
In rooms or miles away
Memory lending peace
To the dreams unfulfilled
Merely In the giving
Of an unexpected
Thoughtful caress by you
Unmanaged and unplanned
Desire, passion, need
Compelling your gesture
In this moment doing dishes
All posts by Lesley Buse
Sr. Dolores
Once she was a Roger
Her brother’s name borrowed
Then given back to his kids
So confusing even hurtful
In a game of water volleyball
After the real Roger died
And this nun with the ball
Would hear the shouts
Roger, hey Roger, throw the ball
She couldn’t bear causing that hurt
But she hung my friend from
A hook in the wooden cloak room
The daughter of alcoholics
Paying for her beauty every day
Dolores never heard
That girl’s silent pleas
Working Mom Visits Her Best Friend
traveling back to who
and when I was loved by
people who know me as me
not the person responding
to your rants and raves
so many of you, yelling,
demanding something be done
about what you need, now
emergencies of ego
born of desperate promises
abandoned in a heap at my door
a plump screaming baby
whose real mother grew
weary of holding, coddling,
and soothing all the unremitting
finger jabs for attention
Yet, determined by a cord
wrapped in a hope filled future
my own babies wait
wanting the mom they
once knew, calm, loving
attentive to needs
their lovely bow of forgiveness
hiding my broken promises
Sustenance
Back and forth
the two of us
Push, pull
manipulate
Emotional dough
kneaded
A rise then
a punch down
Miraculous
rise again
This shiny
sticky mass
Of unseen efforts
that when pulled
From the heat
reveals a warm
Tenderness encased
in a golden shell
Breakfast with Buse 