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love is a toddler whom
turns its back on fear

and trust-falls down a slide
sliding backwards---

with an unequivocal faith
another form of itself

will be there to catch it
in its arms at the end of

the drop off.

:::

it is the icy, hypothermic chill

and the pasty filth of blendered dead-leaf soil

on a late winter day after a night's rain;

letting go of control.

~

while you shiver, look up.

through the scum on your eyes,

you will see buds growing on the trees;

you will feel a hand cover your heart

which makes you feel relief;

the hand of Spring in you.

:::

the age-crevasses of experience

in his grease-scarred hands

guillotine red peppers.

it is the only sound in the room

before i ask my grandpa how

he forgave grandma when she

saw another man with him.

he looks up---a green pepper spares it life.

once his eyes decide to tell me

he moves them across the counter top

and smiles.

"well, you know i love her very much.

and i know she loves me very much.

it was hard, but this is what i did..."

he lifts a yellow onion in his hands.

"i took us---as this onion---and cut it.

the sulfur of the things i felt and said

to her burned both my eyes and hers.

we cried so much. but then, i took

the cut onion that was us and didn't

thrown it in the garbage. within my own

hurt, i still saw the love between us.

so i took the onion and threw it in

a pan---poured extra virgin olive oil

and added mushrooms. once i was

done cooking them, i separated them out

onto two plates. i ate with her that night.

no longer were the onions burning our

eyes. we were eating something satisfying.

a kindness and love.

we ate. and because i forgave her,

we not only ate our onions and mushrooms...

we enjoyed them."