• I walk mincingly
    from the carport
    to the porch,
    skin coarse with salt
    and other sediment
    I carry with me,
    the August night
    ripe with warm
    tomatoes.

    Single, I tread,
    my arms full,
    resting one bag
    on my knee,
    steadying the other
    in the crook
    of my elbow.
    Peaches and corn
    shift and buckle
    as I search
    for my keys,
    like this,
    never thinking
    to put the bags
    down or to make
    another trip.
    on Saturday
    I meet friends
    for coffee. Our life
    is still a slumber party
    in many ways--
    telling secrets
    of misguided love
    and equally misguided
    fingers and tongues;
    laughing till we are weak
    with struggling to be good,
    till will we cry because we
    might never be good.
    Still, we are comfortable
    to be women, to be
    smart; the edge
    of our catastrophes
    we use to feed
    each other hope,
    to dance.

    Who else, I wonder,
    could know this,
    could place a finger
    on the heart without
    flinching from the very
    beat of the thing?