Crazy Little Thing

For Joseph. The poet in me is no longer starving for inspiration.

Enter Lightning Boy, I

I was running for cover when you struck me.

Unexpected whip crack flashed my retinas, constricting pupils, and rang in the echoless open field. Heart stuttering, knees sloppy, my back kissed damp earth. You opened a door in the churning sky and walked to me on a path of illumination, offering a healing hand that blossomed open to show me forever. No conditions; just a bouquet of love and peace and rationality served on a blessed silver platter.

Enter Lightning Boy, II

I, the toiling
mathematician; you
the chalk dust 
burrowing in fingerprint
ridges – together
we harness genius,
the blackboard
of our calloused hands,
and drive toward
the indecipherable
equation of affection.

After numerous cold years
stinking of sweat 
mingled and hollowed, 
these hallowed 
walls of our minds churned
and finally
the variables click into place,
numbers flash together 
like old friends.