Her name rolls off my tongue like a sweet puff of smoke. She is a potent mix of innocence and caution with vibrant black hair, smooth alabaster skin and a slender willowy frame. She seems completely unaware of her own beauty. And she is here, in my apartment. She was reluctant, at first, to stop by. She had heard far too much about me from a misguided co-worker who had raised the red flag. She wouldn’t say his name, but I knew who did the trash-talking. When time permits, I’ll have a little chat with him, make sure he knows not to stick his nose in my business. She stood there, yesterday afternoon, in the drab grey-carpeted hallway of our stuffy downtown Syracuse office building, her body swaying, reluctance in her soft voice as she…

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  Wavelength Oh how I wish I was them The two humans linked together As one, pressing fingers together, creating The invisible spark Shooting across hearts, into starry eyes. You can practically see how Their heart beats sync together, until Every beat is the echo of another. She breathes out, He breathes in Her heart thumps, His replies, now connected In the same electrical wavelength Like man made magic, strummed together In the heavens above, reenacted on this earth Below. And as I see them falling farther Into the love I crave I want to hold Your hand.     Cold Morning Here I sit in the early hours of the morning Listening to the birds squawk And the clocks clang The world is waking up— Who said mornings were quiet? Silence was not an…

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Roland looked both ways, then trotted across the street with the flower pots under his arm. He climbed the stairs to the porch along the back side of Sissy’s apartment building and set the pots down among everything else he’d brought—several flats of marigolds, pansies and petunias—then went to work, quickly dividing the flowers and arranging them in the pots, carefully watering each when he was finished and lining the five full colorful pots along the edge of the porch. He paused to catch his breath and frowned down at the backyard—the thick lawn choked with crabgrass, clover and dandelions, clumps of choke cherry bushes gnarled and bent as arthritic old bones. Inside Sissy had fruit punch and a bowl of chips ready for him on the kitchen table. “Thanks Dad, but Jesus you didn’t…

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