Deference

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.
-Proverbs 13:12

You’ve never been off-putting
even though I’ve put off
being with you for three years.
We’ve both wanted the same thing:
each other’s arms, each other’s eyes,
each other’s heart.

When those appendages and organs
are in proximity,
it hurts to move them apart.
Like magnets
they want to come back together.
But the distance makes me sick
and it hurts when I speak.

Someday our hearts will be entwined,
and when they are, my dear,
we’ll have a giant tree.

The Indian on the Canvas

I never believed in art
the way I believed
in poetry, literature,
music, and film.
I acknowledged it as the sister
to my own work.
I never said it wasn’t worthy
I just never understood.

That oil Indian on the canvas
showed me meaning,
the emotional claws
that gripped my stomach
and twisted
when I saw the tattered flag
and the Purple Heart.
He wouldn’t let me look away
from the past of our nation.

I’m a child, and like a mother
she showed me technique,
the detail and precision
of a surgeon’s scalpel,
more time, and attention
than I could ever muster
for the most detailed
sonnet or sestina.
Ten thousand lines
that I didn’t notice
until my face almost touched
the painting.