To those who have graced my life with their presence and friendship. You know who you are. My rose-colored sentiment reaches out to touch your faces.
He sits in his den, writing to unseen friends
with fingers deftly reaching out through keyboard strokes
to other faces elsewhere – washing dishes,
rubbing the dog’s belly, changing diapers, making love –
he knows not what.
* * *
Will the clicking sound of these tiny letters
sufficiently churn his insides out? Reconfigure
his heart, itchy and bothered, his
stories, stale and old, too long in storage?
His ideas grown too certain for the pitch and yaw of good friendships?
* * *
Candles burn more quickly in good company,
their scent, unnoticed; their light, unheeded.
But their gentle presence is the necessary accoutrement of delight,
the required prelude to fellowship and laughter
in dimly lit rooms made lighter by other eyes.
* * *
In the intimations of the evening he gives a sigh
and with one last look at a screen, long dark,
he remembers. He steals from the back shelves
a glimpse or two of those he cannot see, rendered pink
in the red and white of dreams.
Rob's Lit-Bits 