SATORI
In the budding white morning I crawl
out of bed and wander barefoot down
the stairs and yawn into the kitchen
where you’re making coffee, and I
see a woman making coffee and wearing
what must be my red shirt, and I watch
her move sternly as if I shouldn’t be there,
or as if I should be remembering to be polite,
because truth is I’m just then getting
my bearings, wondering why everything
shines so clear, the rhombus of sun
on the oak table, the copper fan stuttering
overhead, and I watch as she walks
to the fridge and pulls and disappears
behind the door, disappears except
for the red sleeve I almost recognize,
and the curled fingers on the handle
that I know I must now go up and touch,
and it comes to me then that I have
wandered in my life from dream to dream,
with a lotus of awakening about to open.
—from Rattle #43, Spring 2014
Tribute to Love Poems
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Mark Smith-Soto: “Growing up in Costa Rica, I began to love poetry listening to family members recite the work of Alfonsina Storni and Rubén Darío around the dinner table. I didn’t always understand the verses, but they sounded beautiful to me, and I knew that someday I would want to write some of my own.” (website)
