Now and Then by Michael L. Newell

A breeze strokes the skin of a pool;
a dog licks herself slowly;
a cloud absentmindedly drapes the moon;

soon we are upstairs;
the long slow rhythm of search, blessed
stillness, we find how breathing

makes quilts float through a room, how
fingers become incandescent -- a colony of fireflies;
when the rain starts, we listen

for hours -- now and then
one of us says, "Don't
leave, never leave." Now

and then I remember these things,
lying alone as the wind slams
sheets of rain through the screen,

as my fingers turn gray under lamplight,
as the room darkens and shadows
stream down walls.

Michael L. Newell has recently had poems published in Jerry Jazz Musician, Shemom, and Bellowing Ark.  He has had 20 books and chapbooks published over the past three decades.