Rosy is red
Shiny is blue
Sweet is my love
When looking at you
Using the rhyme
Everyone knows
Mix it match it
Your love it will show
Try it tonight
Love’s all you need
You I so cherish
So common indeed
But ears to heart
Hear your sweet song
Like X’s and O’s
She’ll sing right along
Gift in a verse
Easy as this
Take my advice
It surely won’t miss
Have you ever been waiting in line behind a guy
You think has a toupee on his head?
And while waiting for a really long time in that line
That doesn’t seem to be moving forward,
You wonder what he looked like with his real hair
It must have been darker, the shade that
Still lingers above his ears, not having abandoned him
Would you start to imagine him adjusting it carefully
Thinking it made him look younger, better
Than if he was partially bald, or shaved it off completely?
Does he take it off, setting it on his nightstand
Or keep it on in case his wife comes to bed feeling amorous?
Does he fret over every windy weather report
Knowing he will have to hold onto it like others do a hat?
It keeps my mind busy, this staring at his artificial hair
And I find myself as you probably would too
Feeling compassion for this total stranger and his whys
That compelled him to cover up what changed
Sometimes so much more than simple recessive genetics
Leading all of us to fix what shouldn’t need to be
It is then, I slowly reach up and touch it lightly with love
There is the hope for closeness
When they are adults and I am gone
Not standing by, suggesting or
Forcing it by demanding truces
Calling for ceasefires continually
The many verbal assaults that
Still sometimes end in giddy
Laughter over one or the other
Expelling a gaseous exchange
With the universe merrily shocking
Each others olfactory sensibility
And always the question of
Who did that? All three know
Without anyone admitting it
I smile knowing it is in these
Silly boy exchanges that their
Love is in the craziest of details
The Fossil
I noticed it
while walking
With my children
Over
the twisting
bumpy trails
That boys like,
rough,
unsure
Slightly
Dangerous
This mother’s mind
Concentrating
On the safe
footfall
Six other feet
She wills
With a shifting
But Persistent Gaze
Be careful
For
any
troublesome
Spot
Loose dirt
Gives warning
Haste of only
One,
Is
All
It
Would
Take
To
Spoil
It
Again…Be Careful
The view lost in her diligence
The sunshine
sneaking through
Without invitation,
no arm
Holding back the way
Its brilliance
Glinting on a fragment
Stop a second she suggests
Look
There
A bone,
Pulling it
Free
Wooly mammoth, giant tortoise, T-Rex,
Squabbling paused with
We will be famous, like that Leaky guy from science class
Then a trained eye, wise, reasoned
It’s just a deer bone, boys…see
His explanation lost as we move on
The youngest
pleading to bring it home
Sure
Knowing the desire to keep
This day propped
Against his wall
A polished memory
Possibilities in every fossil
It’s over screamed for no one to hear
Goodbye, see you around, hate filled ends
Nothing stirs, silence, acceptance -yes
I fell asleep, what did you tell me
Dreamt of your touch, kissing me softly
Were you crying, just tired- come here
Hair through fingertips, nose at my ear
Why me, you, and now us, here, a pair
yours forever without banded ring
Love not easy, love not always kind
Hear me to know me; then still love me
You stir me in ways yet profound
Breakfast with Buse 