This One Day

 

There is just this one day

A set of    single       unmissed moments    occurring between us

bringing thoughts and new wants and joy

bursting from within me

 

riding the instant melody of your surprising voice

heaping coals onto the fire that is your laughter

 

unearthing treasures in each slow closing and reappearance of your eyes

upturning urges and tickling the toes of my stepping nearer to you

 

I won’t bother asking if this evening    is honestly    all     mine

 

hopefully you are asking, too

hopefully,  like     wonder,   you      across this landscape of table top

across this closing divide

on the other side of this meal     at the end of a swallow

 

tenderly  wrapped  like a luscious tongue ’round the tine of a fork

savoring  this new taste   that fills  our bellies

 

I would go ahead and cry for you

go ahead and let the hold back water flow from within my soul

go ahead and fill the dry, ochre fibers of this mud cloth sewn overshirt

 

I would     go ahead and lay down for you

a mere bridge    a heaven’s gate    a whisper covering and claiming its only heart

 

there is never enough time on night’s like this

never enough nights    wetted     and savoring    and lavish    like this

 

I am certain that tomorrow awaits just beyond these windows

waits    and claims new life    just beyond the doors of this eatery

waits    and ponders  which other big, precious brown eyed beauty

what other   ebony hued and ivory grinned   slender slip of curved Sistah

wherever  other self-assured and charismatic women will be poured out before me

 

Tomorrow …..a desperate creator of itself

having never cared to hold over  remnants  of what Today has laid bare

Tomorrow

already     pressing the clocks and watches into a new hour

wants me to believe that you are on your way gone

slipping away     filtered out by the cold and dark night    that we are being guided  into

the exhausted Waiter     himself a Tomorrow Man

already paid and cashed out and done with our ogling eyes   and cold, spilled fries

 

Tomorrow….Tomorrow…..

I am convinced that if you will accept my offer to  take you gently into the wealth

and warmth of   a moment    pressed against the tear stained ochre shirt

even Tomorrow will claim us     as its’ very, very own creation

 

 

 

 

 

Jas. Mardis

 

 

New 2016 National Poetry Month poems

Jas Mardis is a 2014 Inductee into The Texas Literary Hall of Fame and an award winning Poet, Radio

Commentator and Art Quilter.