fragments, pt 5

In love with the human singularity,
In love with the tandem and the disparity,
In love with this new clarity:

The sincerity of the disguises we shed, by layers
Leaving torn veils that lead like trails
To this moment.
And then the next --

Recklessly in motion and at rest,
We connect in
Burst cocoons and dead skin.
Every shed exoskeleton feeds the bred ecosystem
Of our collective wisdom.

fragments, pt 2

light moves over your sleeping body:
a shifting patterned robe
fluttering lacework
curling arms
wind chimes

comforter, lavender, coal
endless texture mixer
color theory wheel
hollow-pocked cheeks
parted lips
crooked teeth

crack me like a walnut
my apple-hearted crock pot
kin, catharsis, improv
partner, cartwheel, seasalt:
burning incense,
trailing thunder,
steady breather,
fists like cusping peonies --
open me.

fragments, pt 1

Have you ever used a humble word?
Do you dare to eat a peach?
You cannot hear the mermaids singing
if you drown them in your speech.

I have seen their washed up bodies on the beach.

I have heard their mourners calling, each to each.

It didn't sound like this.

Life goes on, and all my wishes have whittled down to one:
To be remembered as someone who tried.

I have outrun everything but desperate sincerity

And this shape-shifting fear-hound,
Nightmare dog on the heels of every thought.

Mutt, I have spent every night of my life
With my fist down your throat,
Clawing for the name to call you by
To cast you from me like a herd of pigs.

You are aloof, sarcastic,
You pretend not to notice
When you're coming or going.

I'm embarrassed by how casually
You drive me over cliffs.

You are so close these days that sometimes
You wear my body
And I watch,
Dumb,
Numb,
And skeletal in a fur coat,
What you do and say
And wonder
If my voice has always sounded that way.

Even now, alone,
I hear your paws picking paths
Down the hall outside my bedroom
And the hot fog of your breath.

Your eyes are fearful yellow and always glowing closer,
Like the headlights of a train constantly closing in
On a cartoon woman chained to the tracks.

What ritual will exorcise you?

All I want anymore is my skin back
And a knife to your throat.

forgive me

There are times I disappoint you,

O friend or fear behind each face --

And times I disappoint me, too.

But the former does not displace

My doubting of the latter's due

In the dispensing of our grace.

.


We travel up, between, and through

Exchanged relationships of space.

No transgression is old or new.

We disentangle. We embrace.

roll call

Cast your life and grief in plaster relief.
When your lovers leave, keep and gild their teeth.

Pane past scenes in iron-framed stained glass screens
In cathedrals where the light braids its streams.

Concentric circles, the shafts bend and seep
And the shafts bow and weep and wash your feet.

Light fields spin to gold and back into wheat.
We watch in rows with scythes, and do not reap.

a blessing.

I sing the body imperfect:

Bless you, funny smile.

Bless you, protuberant, awkward tuber of a nose.

Bless you, toes (I like you the most).

Bless my too-long mid-face, keen eyes,

focused and soft with green gravity and easily collapsible:

Two cups to an eager pitcher.

Bless these piano hands, long thumbs, narrow reach.

Bless the surgical scar across my right-hand knuckle.

Bless the coltish buckle of my knees.

Bless you, spindly-speckled arms, 

pin-hole dusted with dark gold

like a lightly toasted slice of white bread.

Bless my freckled breasts, small buttons of a little jacket.

Bless this hippy pelvis, vast and hairy and

altogether a woman's.

Bless the collarbones of my broad shoulders,

jutting out, my mom says,

like budding angel wings.

Bless these ribs like ladder rungs.

Bless the limitless wind of my lungs.

Bless the muscles that shift like restless actors

behind the milk-colored curtain of my back.

Bless you, divoted stomach, bless your holy hunger.

Bless the warm curve of the back of my neck,

kitten-cushioned by baby hairs.

Bless the goofy, insistent outward poke of my front teeth.

Bless this swollen pout of lip, round

chunky cheeks, stolen from

the museum giftshop of my girlhood.

Bless the offset of their softness by 

too-high,

too-dark,

too-arched eyebrows and

my mother's cheekbones.

Bless my forehead, smooth rectangle.

Bless my two temples and bless 

the worshiper between them,

laboring behind a veil of bone.

Bless this serious face and bless the continuous breaking of it,

like a wave on a California coastline,

into laughter.