the practice room

A year ---  

I don't count time

I let it hold me in its clutching embrace

Sooner or later it will release

And I'll slide quietly away, hoping it won't stir as I ease on my boots and click the door shut behind me

Toward water

Rock paper and scissors where water

Beats time

Time beats heartache

Sunrise crowned ruler over all

How many sunrises have I seen this year

How much water has bathed my frazzled limbs caressed every spot his hands 

Used to know

Held me when my heart thrashed 

Body cried

Soul ached.

I count time maybe then by sweets

Made for friends

Birthday cakes

Sparkling frosted cookies

Pieces of my brokenness

Made lovely again

I count it too by the strain of my calves 

After a long morning's walk by the river

Through the snow

To arrive back, somehow, 

Here

The murmur and lone horn 

Warming his lungs in the hallway obscured

By stacked tables and chairs and serenading me 

To this little room

Where maybe here, myself will allow myself

heart mind and soul to sit and hold hands. Speak softly of dreams

Willing body to fuse into one sound---

Alleluia.