Eighty-One

looking down on neatly drawn, perfectly symmetrical square
patches of land, dry and lush, brown and green,
from somewhere beyond the metaphorical, abstract beauty that
seems to spew so abundantly in minds at times, i remembered
a tiny pair of unsteady hands i held in my own this summer:

much, much smaller than my own, i held these hands and walked
up three steps, sometimes over cement, sometimes grass,

through a room with red painted ABC's and multilingual 123's,

and into a room of plushy, old, torn mattresses where,

smiling the piercing smile that i feel cutting my heart strings now, in the air,

tiny black shoes wobble off and the smile, the beautiful white teeth no

larger than tiny taps of a felt pen, continues to pierce

like a bright infallible light

through supposed darknesses and difficulties that

i am here to solve.

no, this summer was not about solving,

it was about loving. and i hold those hands

and kiss those tiny cheeks, gazing into

smooth eyes filled with pure innocent love for life-

yes, i am sitting with those hearts now,

now and always.