our days before we knew

on the way home from mahone bay, we stop at a roadside flea market and watch offbeat vendors with the knick knacks of their trade. tea cups, war memorial metals, books long-bought and never read. pennies the pound, two dollars a dozen; this smells of basements and summer haze and the cheap claptrap blues.

beside a bridge and below oaktrees,
i have found a new & secret land.
it's a place of tiger-striped rocks,
giant ants, blackberries, acorns, lichen.
if i ever need to be away,
we will bring blankets here
and lie side by side on the rocks: us
& trains & the glow of city stars.

i read in a book that love is arms open so let's hug like we're airplanes.

the boy who sits on his front door stoop is moving & he just wants to know my name.
black cats that cross my path just want to play. and i want to walk forever and to listen.