Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
Derek Walcott

CARE
By Mark Nepo

It used to be so
complicated: going
where I’d want
without a word
as if telling anyone
made me less free.
Or coming into
a relationship
like a bus station,
checking fares and
destinations
before boarding.
It used to be so
confusing: needing
to be touched
while wanting
to be left alone,
and still it’s hard
to let all I am show
in the presence
of strangers or
intimates who’d
like me to change.

But when I’m
stopped or stalled,
I spray the plants
and they shine for me.
I laugh in public
at what music does
to my notion of silence.
I touch your wrist
and something flows