Asphyxiate
Lungs burning for air,
stacatto heartbeats tearing
certainty in twain
I love mornings where time
only exists when I realize my coffee has gone
cold while talking with you
about life and dreams and how the world should be.
I love afternoons with sweat,
and dirt from the earth we work together
planting seeds and anticipating new life–
hoping for the growth to outweigh the loss
of our season of toil.
Yet — we also have grown mature enough to accept there are lessons in loss as well.
As we take a break in the heat of the day and reassure one another that it is all
an experience and risk worth taking —
You remind me this is a safe place to rest.
I love how the summer nights sneak up on us
unexpectedly — with the splendor of cotton candy skies the color of fire—
darkness rolls in, but we are not without light.
the moon shines as the stars dazzle, and the fireflies remind us of the glittering gold found in the treasures running around us— screaming with delight.
I love the dreams that carry us to bed—
shattered and longing for sleep.
It is in these dreams that the world is defeated, and we renew our strength.
It is in the darkness, that we find what arouses our souls & plows the way for the work of our heart. It is beside you, I choose to be, as we- toil, rest, play, dream, & sleep.
This is how you build a home, my love. This is where love grows deep. This harvest is not for just a season, but for the generations we will never see.
I drove a car today
for the first time
in months.
It felt strange
to go down the highway,
it could have been
any other day,
and even stranger when
I went through town
observing the large
volume of traffic and
seeing full parking lots
and people
roaming around,
walking on sidewalks,
laughing in groups
with no masks
like we aren’t
amid a pandemic;
like everything is
just as it was before.
I couldn’t look away
from reckless risks
and the disregard of
a viral threat holding
so much at stake.
People have built
their castles in the
air wishing it over.
I dropped off groceries
for my parents I had
bleached from a
pickup order
earlier in the day,
and turned around
to come home
making the stretch
through town,
noting no change,
and onto the highway
winding the hills
back to the
sanctuary
of my farm.
And like that, she was gone.
I didn’t get to meet her,
but I have some dishes
that belonged to her,
and I use them every day.
She never learned to drive,
but that didn’t seem to slow
her down in the least, as I’ve seen
pictures of her in the most
unexpected places:
New York Public Library,
Grand Canyon, Maid
of the Mist, the Golden
Nugget, CN Tower, Teotihuacan,
Powell’s Books.
I’ve also seen pictures of her
in very ordinary places: the kitchen,
the dining room table, the porch
swing, the barn that burned
down after lightning struck.
This wasn’t hers, but she wears
a sweater very much like it in many
of those pictures. Sometimes
when I put it on, it feels
like I’m wearing her instead.
Moon Day is your day
To vacuum and sweep and mop
While I mope at my writing desk
Desk writing is definitely my mope
My modus operandi for another week
You say scram, out of my way, out
Of this sterile wreck tangle of the leaf
Litter of language where literature
Is left behind, out to the squiggly mess
Of what nature provides for free
So I go through air’s open door
Ratchet into summer’s overgrowth
To sit write stand
In the roots of an old sycamore
Whose single trunk branches
At eye level
Into an equal trinty of tree
I crane my head to witness
Its holy fingers reaching
Up to the un-answering sky
Then the wind stills itself
I look down to see a mosquito
On the cuff of my pants, I think
Of the small bite you left on the nape
Of my neck and of the body parts life flings
In various directions for various reasons.
Perhaps when my molecules
Ascend to earth’s dome this sycamore
Will stick its nose up into the ether to catch
My scent
It’s pride month
I’m bisexual
I have been my whole life
I didn’t know
Because my parents
Used to say
I was gay as a punishment
I never took it that way
But they shamed me
And it made me think,
Like all my other thoughts,
that I was bad
I used to talk to other girls about boys
Just to talk to girls
I’m married to a boy
So people still shame me for saying
I’m bisexual
I’m pretty sure they don’t know
What it means
It means
I know myself better than I used to
And I can look back
And know who I was,
Who I am
windows open and I almost regret
fireworks pop pop popping
early as it’s mid June
voices, sirens, doors open and close and why is everyone so loud
a breeze occasionally blows in but I’m not sure it’s enough
I tell myself I will soon close the windows
subdue the world and its clanging
rest does not come without silence
not to me and the loudness ensues
more than just tonight
everything arises, in an off key harmony
weeks and weeks on top of days
when will chaos end
the right chair is more important than you might guess–
angles between brush and canvas and arm and chair
creating as many dimensions as string theory theorizes
the magic can only happen with the right chair
Ronald, the street painter, did not know this;
at least, it never crossed his mind
he simply found an old chair in a shop on the Rue de Turenne
and decided it was comfortable
Passersby, of course, were mesmerized by his canvases,
by the gentle flick of his wrist, by the way his gaze
drew their eye to the invisible line he traced on the canvas
Morons and foreigners would try to interrupt Ronald,
to seek a cheap caricature from the small man
they did not recognize as a master.
Ronald paid no attention–
his left hand held the brush, his right the palette
and before him stretched the Seine in its glory
passersby walking on the streets above the river, unaware
of the undulating rhythm of the water
finding its way into the motion of his arm
when the street painter sat on his chair
he disappeared into his landscapes–
revealing, on the canvas, a universe
not unlike our own, yet
all the more beautiful
Lesser than the sun,
but greater than the Earth,
and always, always more
than the sum of her parts
