August 9, 2016

poems for ice cream

Two bottles of water for the smile during a heat wave. Extra towels for asking
where she got her necklace, which led to a conversation about New Mexico.
The room with a better view for the tired look that comes from a road trip.
A bill pressed into a palm for time with a swatch of paper and the small,
healing burst of art that followed. The books from her great-grandfather for a reason
that may not reveal itself for years. When I passed through the Paris airport,
I knew exactly what to expect at the exchange booth, the numbers down
to the decimal point. But here, in the country of the heart, lives another currency entirely,
the scale seesawing in a million directions, where what you give is always, always
more than enough.