Closer

In the grey street, in the bitter cold,

blood frozen to the pavement, the pensioner

stumbles back to concrete block tenement.

There, where beauty has no place, 

where simple tedium is interrupted

by only crime and horror and desperation.

There, beauty breaks through the scene,

the celluloid catches fire in the projector

singed with brilliant yellow and orange bubbles,

burning through to:

A landscape of green rolling hills dotted with little trees.

A place you go and visit and never go home

Because you discover in a short time that you are home there.

A charming village center, twinkling lights,

a soft summer night, sitting at a café table

across from you, your eyes expectant

for words that are pulled out of me.

They spill clumsily from my mouth

But they are not my words, they are yours

They will always be for you alone.

Those wide expectant eyes, drawing my words,

drawing me inexorably closer and closer,

so close, closer than I have ever been.

A game, like a child’s game, daring each other

to get closer, but we keep getting closer

so close, bonded.