For Karen

(Once in a while, a poem sneaks up on me. Here's another, inspired by a soft and restorative Easter break and a pretty cool wife...)

I look back over the movie of my life –

Some of the scenes are of lonely lovers in tuxedos,

With loosely-hanging untied bowties,

Standing on wet streets

Under crane shots in the fire-hose rain.

There are shots of rooms with long, light, seawind-lifted curtains over big windows, 

The young character rocking on her bed of rumpled sheets,

Sunset wavering through in flashes of orange.

There have been sparking car-chases over roller coaster, San Fran streets;

There have been dive-bombing close calls,

Horseback leaps over shallow streams amid gunfire

And images of the hero walking defiantly away from cigarette-lit gasoline explosions.

No there haven’t. Well, there kind of were.

Except, they didn’t feel heroic.

In fact, they left the star feeling odiously irked by karma.

There have been love scenes scored only with  breathing,

Or crying,

Or anger.

There have been love scenes with laugh-tracks.

And some made inveitably doomful by 4/4 ostinatos in D-minor.

But the scene I’ll remember most,

When I leave the theater for the last time:

[DAYTIME. INTERIOR]

You and me on opposite ends of the couch,

Silent, with coffee cups.

We sip, catch eyes.

You look at me; I look at you.

Our silly, private, cartoon smile –

And back to being quiet, together, as we watch rain through rainy windows.