It's in the Details

(a Mathematical Quandary)

Like a kid impatient

@ 3 am, waiting for dawn's

first light to have her stocking

on Christmas morn,

I am lying awake wondering.

And like that child,

excited about candy, trinkets

and a juicy orange wedged

tightly in the toe,

I'm thinking about the little things:

how you smiled in your

sleep, the way your

arm cradled me,

the sweetness in your

touch and the warmth

of your gaze.

Each treasured detail,

burnished in my mind;

the sum of which

doesn't equal

the infinite parts.

Jennifer Willman

12/16/2001

Tonight I died

a thousand cliche`s.

My heart beats

in my ears

and my breath

has gone away

with the buried

and dying.

I've lost you

for parts unknown.

I'm drowning

in unshed tears,

shivering in naked fear.

Like the dancer

I don't want

the lid to fall

down on the box.

I want the music

to keep playing;

even if it's just

the blues.

Jennifer Willman

1991

It is a few days

before your birthday.

I can picture you

gathering the threads of law;

weaving them together

to make blankets of Justice.

Painstakingly crafted without snags

or loopholes from the finest

legal precedents

and the fiber of integrity.

We were friends

of the long lost sort,

coming together once in awhile

to dance to our song

--Timing is Everything

by Quality.

And yet, of all the memories

caught in the web of Nostalgia,

yours are among the ones

I hold most dear.

Ephemeral glimpses of your warm smile

and the first and last

times I saw you

yield to a simple wish:

to know you as you are now.

Jennifer Willman

Aug.16,2001