It's a still life water color,

Of a now late afternoon,


As the sun shines through the curtained lace


And shadows wash the room.

And we sit and drink our coffee


Couched in our indifference,


Like shells upon the shore

You can hear the ocean roar


In the dangling conversation


And the superficial sighs,

The borders of our alliance.





And you read your Emily Dickinson,



And I my Robert Frost,

And we note our place with bookmarkers


That measure what we've lost.


Like a poem poorly written

We are verses out of rhythm,


Couplets out of rhyme,


In syncopated time

And the dangled conversation


And the superficial sighs,


Are the borders of our alliance.




Yes, we speak of things that matter,


With words that must be said,