what did it mean before, to be touched?
what it means now
feels sacred,
vital like water or blood, or love,
as if we are holding our breath,
waiting for the oxygen to return.
touch is a flame we pass
between us to keep warm,
it is the river the whole
valley drinks from.
did we even notice it before?
I crave touch now
like a hunger pain,
deep and hollow in my belly.
I want to be held as if to say,
“everything will be alright”
but also, “you are good.”
What spring flowers that’d peeked
are now hiding from the cold,
in the yard at least.
There are still prevalent patches of lamb’s quarters.
And one rain-chewn dandelion.
Two rain-chewn dandelions.
Pale and glaucous, sage-green buds are flecking the assuméd honeysuckle.
Rust red stalks curl and rattle by the abandoned amateur apiary.
And clovers slowly sweeping the tawnier patches
where the grass had molted,
suffusing a gripping green across the lawn
A hunched and denim-swaddled jew
furrows and jitters behind a slithering strand of sallowed azure smoke,
literally crepitating with worry for her other half
some tens of thousands paces westward
she nurses a cup
adorned with a bunny reared and smirking among some vernal flowers
if only she could don those ears
and whimsically mince through the english damp
perchance she’d cheer her darling up
and not sleave long chains of sallowed butts
for a tubby Tanuki to weigh,
assess, appraise, and, by this,
levy a gleeful twist
to this sapping and griseous english damp—
yet she’s cream for all the coffee quaffed
and a chatty, contortionist cat to scoff at her,
bacon filling a sturdy trough
and whimsied with hope that her darling return to her;
whimsied hope that she may brave
the desert winds and darting sand
and further hope that she can raise
her mother as a kid again
to gambol, skip, guffaw, and brave
such voices raised and pointing hands
that plague her still,
the past appraised,
arraigned,
and
chipperly
pardoned
I always wondered why you never called me.
Your last day was a spiderweb of connections.
Yet, you forgot to bring your thread back to me.
I’ve wondered, wide awake, staring at the ceiling, why didn’t you have anything to say?
Were you angry? Was I one of the entity’s you were upset with? Wether it be god or satan, maybe your situation? Had I done something that has went unforgiven?
Or did you think nothing could be said? That maybe we already had our moments.
Maybe leaving quietly was comforting.
And not giving me a last conversation made everything endless.
I’ll always ask myself these questions. In the darkness of my room, trying to make sense of your strange motives.
It’s surreal to sit with my son
and listen to the whippoorwill
as we talk about its extinction.
The lonely call
fervent then fading.
Repeat.
We watch bats dip down
to drink from the pond,
disrupting the mirrored
sunset across its surface,
and I think of their fate too.
I don’t have the heart
to share more hopeless
facts with a person whose
future rests on this
crumbing foundation.
His excitement to hear
the whippoorwill and
reassurance at least
we have this moment
in our memories,
a deduction
beyond his years,
fills me with a
desperate kind of love,
a touch of hope,
and deep aching despair.
A small white butterfly
Drifting through the field
Makes me feel like I’m innocent
Like the younger me with no worries
Filled with joy and unconditional love
A breathtaking blue butterfly
Resting under the wooden porch
Feels like a good day
Surrounded by beautiful people
Like the days I feel free
A gentle yellow butterfly
Sifting through the flowers
Reminds me there’s positivity coming
And to hold on to hope, and that
Things will turn out the way they’re supposed to
Words fly after me
and I run barefoot
beneath the hedge.
Girl the dog follows,
sensing trouble
then kittens in a crooked row
chasing tail.
Protected by fur,
though the air is heavy
under the sill.
Loud shouts question
dishes crash
and I run stumbling
’round the house
to the back door
up the stairs
dive deep into my closet
behind toys and books.
Engine roars,
gravel spits
he’s gone.
Pride month is not cancelled, we’re simply getting back to our roots.
Some of us need to be reminded that this was never about a rainbow aisle in Target.
This was born when a black trans woman picked up a brick,
When people crowded the sidewalks to fight back,
And told the police that they were done giving up their safe spaces.
Just because we’re not drunk in the streets, or posting rainbow manicures on Instagram,
Do not think that we’re not celebrating.
Every sign we hold at a protest,
Each cop we tell “not again”,
Every second we spend educating ourselves,
And each time we pull an ally into the fight,
We are throwing the parade of our lives.
Pride is not cancelled,
Pride is revived.
Art is taking something a little less than real and making it a little more than real.
