When I was young,
we carried coal
from the hillside
and
drank water from a well.
The winters were cold
and the summers sweltering
but life was simple and serene.
Family was more than
an abstract concept
and
the summer was sweet
with the smell of honeysuckle.
So unlike
the convenient harshness
of today.
Once, when I was four,
you put me in a rowboat
and pushed me out
into the open
and told me to pick up my oars.
My wails, slick with green harbour,
swallowed by seagulls, like my life,
lonely, empty, afraid.
It’s for your own safety you said,
but when you pulled me to the docks
I learned to trust you
a little bit less.
I junked my first car yesterday
poisons get on everything
deep cuts and
shallow
and just there, on the skin
Did you know that nothing that looks like a blackberry can be poisonous?
raspberry either. Something about the shape. That’s how you can tell these things.
Protection as embrace of familiar thorns
There are so many things in this world that look nothing like a blackberry
Like ivy
Like mistletoe
Like yew
Between yew, me, and the lamppost, I’ve known more poison than
most.
many
few.
We hoard tight our tragedies, plundered, poisonous gold. Breath fire on those who have dared suggest the antidote is to let it all go. pillars of gentle, insistent support. wrap ourselves tight in our paralyzed
breath
gasp
forget
You learn a lot from other people’s stories where the poison berries lie.
I heard that if you tell a dragonfly’s secret, it will sew your mouth shut
is it the gossip that starves you?
Or if you forget yourself, stain your lips purple with guarded fruit,
the lie?
Wasn’t ready for your new picture
to show up in my social media,
the favorite from a photo shoot.
Wasn’t ready for the way
you had your hair swept to the side,
such volume deafening me.
Wasn’t ready for the slim red dress,
little pearls around your neck,
make-up making you shine.
Wasn’t ready for such beauty,
not that I didn’t know your potential
when you were mine.
I just wasn’t ready for your Hollywood glam
commanding all my attention
and drawing tears to my eyes.
Wasn’t ready to miss you so much,
like I’m snowbound and
waiting for the sun.
Wasn’t ready to admit
a part of me will always love you,
though I’ve known it all this time.
I just wasn’t ready to face it.
I wasn’t ready.
I wasn’t…
You were a paper doll,
a plastic horse in a boy’s hand.
You were the painting
of a sideways woman.
Nice to look at and not so tall.
You need a fried oyster
on the end of a fork.
You need to move home.
“Only in the south,” you say
“is one fully arranged.”
upon the snouts of seahorse.
Her beams pulse through waves
wrinkling and dappling
the smooth backs
of sharks.
She pulls night into day
rests on sinews as skin
catches sky.
Her cosmos-lit fingers create
a woman with turquoise for wrists
amber for shoulders
stars for scalp.
I.
Three multi-paned, faceted windows release
sunlight; or is it moonglow?
Eclipsed figures on a gondola
shadow the water lavish blue.
II.
The day we rent a small boat,
time stretches before us
like Norris Lake’s lush reach.
So many tributaries. Some end
in shady coves, others lap for miles,
branch into their own flows.
We didn’t keep track.
Were given no map.
We just kept going.
Midday we turned back,
but which was the way we came?
Night fell,
only a kerosene lamp
to pry impenetrable dark.
* Inspired by Bianca Artope’s print with the same title
You taught me that there’s a sincere difference between living in a city and belonging in it
You taught me patience in a hurry
You taught me the art of letting go when I didn’t realize I was holding on
You taught me to say thank you
when I thought I was grateful enough already
You taught me that sometimes goodbyes aren’t permanent but neither are hellos
You taught me that you shouldn’t have to tell someone they love something
You taught me that life goes on and on
even after you are gone
and that I will get along
just fine .
