Are you the driver
My very own chauffeur
in every sense of the word?

Can I call you Esther Frances….
Esther Frances?

Can you take me somewhere
near the weary edge
where words have meaning
where phrases have rhythm
where language bubbles
in brooks
rather
than lying like debris
on the ground?

Where feelings are not stones
thrown to the murky darkness
of someone’s closet
But where love rises
to greet me every rainy morning
Where my hands reaching
between moist thighs
find a place I can call home?

And can I call you Esther Frances….
Esther Frances?

And can I call you
any time of day and night
and have you borrow me your ear
or your heart or any undefined thing
that I need
exactly when I need it
Will you hold me through stricken nights
when my will dissolves
my strength disappears?

And what will you do when I leave you...
not forever
but for half our lives
Will my in-flight poetry
be enough to sustain you then
Will the moments that we snap and steal
and warmly wrap around each other
replenish my skin laid on yours
Esther Frances?

Can I rain even the parts of me
that I cannot accept
Spray you with my imperfections
and have you smile at me
with ultimate acceptance?

And will you be my Delilah
cut my hair and comb it through
when I have lost awareness
of my own strength
gotten beyond my station
And can I inscribe my name
on the silky white skin
that belongs mostly to you
that belongs also to me?

Perhaps Esther Frances
You can take me anywhere…………………..