It's the instances when....

.... Coleman Hawkings
plays Man With A Horn 
in the room where my man sat
listening to Coleman Hawkings play
Man With A Horn.

Something about that tempo,
the tenor sax solo
shreds the heart into knots
of grass.

It's the instance when I hear
Bill Evans on My Foolish Heart
when above my head my man blows
his horn, one brow rising to say "hi" when
I walk by.

Something about that solitude
makes me a tiny boat tied up
inside a craggy cave of
sloshing melody.

Altar

I could kneel here for hours apologizing
     for what I didn't do so well

or not at all.

Though it was no crime at the time, now
     the pain of deadly loss

makes it so

and the price I pay is huge––the icy quiet
in the house he's made,

the joys I'll never see again;

the end of ease.

What's the point?

Today's the point. 
It's the whole beautiful point. 

First the gorgeous silence when I wake,

the silence of an old sleeping swan. 

The coffee without sound, made without
a single thought and I lean

against the sink to feel 
the tender quiet slip around 
my shoulders with a hug. 

A friend texts: Meet on the bay? 

And before that cobalt sea I bend,

the friend chatting beside me.

I want to hear her every word 
but the rise and fall and the rise and fall 
and the rise and the fall 
of waves, waves, more waves 
coax my ears away 

and all my cares tip-toe 
toward that shore--
to get a little break from me.

How sweet, how thoughtful 
my cares can be.