fall air on summer skin

fall air on summer skin

The difference between 

hitting snooze

and getting up before the alarm

is the willingness to commit, 

a life we’d both want to live,

down the hall to the kitchen sink 

I make the coffee

while part of me still sleeps;

how much caffeine do I need

to awaken from your dream? 

Walking out of this apartment

down to the street

reminds me of summertime 

when I was 13,

a dry creek bank of poison ivy

and an inclination to itch, 

a wish as simple as

a three point jump shot,

but most of the time

it was braces in my teeth

and a basketball bouncing away from me. 

The calendar turns here,

but there is no change to these California trees,

the Eagles wrote a song about a hotel 

that you could never leave,

I’m left to wonder 

if any of these lives I pass by

are anything like me.

That time I smoked a cigarette

with two complete strangers on a balcony,

10 stories up a star shot across the city sky,

but with 5 seconds of fame

did it have the right to land?

Two beers in and I had the balls 

to answer your pretty grin;

just one kiss babe

and I’ll be alright again.

Summer to Fall

brings Starbucks pumpkin spice 

and everything nice,

following their lead 

we buy into the economy

forgetting what it’s like to actually breathe;

a season a transition,

time to recall where we have been

and to decide if

we want to return again.

A purgatory in this desert,

is it a mirage to believe

that if I send out another query

then I might know what it’s like 

to take actually take a drink

or do my dry lips represent

the Santa Monica Pier and a fear 

that Route 66 

no longer leads 

to the Promised Land 

for the Okie?

A steady hand,

a shooters grip,

the determination of a fighter’s thick chin,

David had to play for the King

before he could run for his life

and do his best work;

when it doesn’t go as planned

we want to throw it out and begin again,

but there’s gotta be something to 

dusting off and looking 

at what you have anew.

“What do I see?” 

“Yeah,” you ask with eyes that give 

the warm gesture of the possibility of belief.

“A woman whose life is still new,

a timeline with multiple avenues,

a heart that’s not cold,

but only blue.”

I slide over to you.

“Let me share my blanket with you.”