poems and musing
The last time
I wrapped
around you
I can’t remember
because I didn’t know
it would be the last time
you left breathmarks on my skin
There you were
looking out
me looking in
while the whole wide world
stepped aside
a growing season gone
my body, this body
lain to bare bone
Now, when the chill is just so
my arms fall
into that crooked grin
as if holding you
chest to chest
me the rootstock
you the leaf and blossom
The lines in your face
are a dialect
I don’t understand
so I read your palm
search for you
in each line
each broken direction
and ask you to speak slowly
He carries the horizon
on his shoulders
his knees are bent
days slip from his pocket
like bits of paper and lint
I won’t let go, he says, not yet
and tucks a cloud beneath the mountains
tips the sun like a hat
He takes my hand and traces the stars
leaves a thumbprint on the moon
gathers the ocean to my ear
I reach up on my toes
wrap my arms around his chest
all the way to China
When the crows come
something has changed
either the cold
to snap your bones
stone your heart
turn your lips blue
or fear and the want
to shelter from hawks during the day
or owls when the sun roosts
the something could be
carrion at our feet, calling
murder, murder, murder
a row of pin eyes fastened
clearly, deeply as to not forget a face
or, it could just be a lot of birds
with black feathers
found a warm, dry place
Sometimes a poem
is just a note to self:
dog to vet
new garden hose
check bank balance
call everyone you love
or everyone that needs love
say hi
I loved you last
barely a whisper against my cheek
before you were rushed
and wired behind glass
to fight for every breath
heartbeat, flutter of your eyes
you held me in awe
a protector of the weak
friending the broken boy that lost
the girl curled into herself
the mother that almost forgot to love
I hold my breath
as your heart races wide open
your hands, once too small
to wrap around my thumb
rise above, beyond
my dreams for you
as you suspend
the natural pull of gravity
I am in awe
and think of Kipling’s If –
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
My mother has a story
a beginning, a middle, an end
and I’ve memorized all the good parts
I know nothing
about the wind and why it rides
the mountain ridge
whistling, full canter
nor the birdsong
coaxing the morning
until the sun slants, hums, rhymes
not water
how it cools
over, under, around
nor fire
planets
stars
oxygen
grass
and nothing about the blood
that slicks the bodies of children
still, silent, gone
because the color of their skin
the accent of their god
I know
nothing divisible by nothing
has no defined value
when surviving is not enough
truly, the alternative is not this
My mother’s house leans to one side
as if listening to something busy underground
worms loosening the soil,
mice combing roots, beetles
tunneling down, down, down
I wander room to room
measure the give of the floorboards
under my bare feet
and listen for whispers settled beneath the wood
I cradle my mother’s words,
scratched on a drug store receipt
I fold the slip of paper
over and over
smaller and smaller
cut my fingertips on the crease
if my grandfather is my father
am I a sister or an aunt
a daughter or a mother
a woman or a monster
Some folks linger over secrets
like a Sunday meal
they nibble, they chew
they lick words from their fingers
others swallow whole and spit out the ash
My grandmother cooks
enough to eat for days
she rubs the chickens clean with ash,
rids disease she says,
wipes the mites out, she says
I think
If I just had some of that
I could fix everything
When I was five
I cried
because I could not be
superman
My father said
be a hero
be a heroine
it doesn’t matter
just be
Writing 