Brian Yapko
my friend or my enemy, you are so
strange to me; you say you breathe
the same air as me, you see the
same moon from your backyard,
the water we swallow tastes no
different. yet your eyes are blue
and mine are brown. how can
we see all the same? does the same
sun warm us both? can there be light
enough for two or twenty or twenty
billion? do i dare believe that more
eyes and windows can mean more
understanding? we need not be missiles
which crash into each other afraid to
share the same sky. we can be the
earth and the moon ever orbiting
around a common center of gravity.
i do not always trust you but in your
eyes i see kindness. so i will accept
your invitation. i will come into your
modest home, we will open the
blinds and i will peer at this conflicted
world through my tinted glasses
and through your cracked window.
Brian Yapko is a lawyer whose poems have appeared in Prometheus Dreaming, Tofu Ink, K’in Literary Journal, Sparks of Calliope, Wingless Dreamer, Gyroscope, Cagibi, Penumbra, the Society of Classical Poets, Grand Little Things, Chained Muse, Abstract Elephant, Poetica and a number of other publications. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with his husband, Jerry, and their canine child, Bianca.