When I walk into the house,
she calls out from the kitchen
to be careful.
Something has fallen in the living room.
One of my piles
of clutter
has fallen
and I have lost at Jenga.
She is too busy cooking
to investigate.
I find a shattered Tinkerbell figurine.
Like a message from the Universe.
“Use your fairy wings more often,
or you’re going to lose them.”
I have never forgotten your kiss, and the places we loved, and
Why I loved you, and your head in my arm while we slept;
Where, the years, haunted, easing over to us and clutching
The satin, would whisper our findings to us… and M—
I remembered too the other loves that are gone forever.
It almost hurt, but not as much as this wasting season
Remembering you—long icicles falling off Kentucky barns,
Black snow sloughing off the undersides of cars.
Under the Virgo moon where I met you, I possessed you.
I cannot speak of the whos, or their whats, and then
Their wheres that have happened in the time since,
Or before—for too, they flew— leaving my tree stark, nude.
All I know is I used to sing for them, and for you.
~This poem was adapted from/inspired by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
From her “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why.”
last night I dreamt of flowers—
location unknown—on wheels
in trunks full of soil and bits
of leftover sand from two years
and six hundred miles away.
purple pussywillow and golden
something-or-others,
aromatics all away, saving space
for dreamy details like
when time jumped,
the uncontrollable way
that only happens in the stem
of a restless mind,
and the flowers were gone,
stolen. petals like fingerprints
at the scene of the crime.
islamic interpretation told me
dream flowers mean joy.
others say they are purity.
delicacy. virginal innocence.
beauty.
the waking world is wavering,
and for the first time we acknowlege
with wide open eyes, pupils dilated,
the weight of words like
“this time feels different.”
please, please. let it be different.
How swiftly you came
with the late spring rain
like the swallow lithe and quick
flew within these walls of brick
that glowed dust-red and bone
by grace, from place unknown.
For a fleeting moment
I longed to trap that swallow
pin her against the glass
feel the flutter of her heart
beating until eternity –
to see her beauty close at hand.
But her beauty lies in this:
to be free
a destiny unknown
free of me.
With sticks and string
she weaved a delicate structure
among the rafters
where my spirit would soar.
And now the darkness quicksens
you leave once more
in faith that I
will one day fly.
So know that you will be
my sacred memory.
June 10, 1998
my lips are stained
with wine and your mouth
you taste like my drink of choice and i still taste you
and your scent stuck to my clothes and hair and skin
i long to be traced by your fingertips again
sit in your warmth
hear your heartbeat through your chest
for me
i hope it’s only for me
I beat my thumbs against the screen
[…………….]
I do not think that they will sing to me,
eventually.
Content warning: self-harm
After the argument,
I attack the clutter in the kitchen
until I am sweating
and out of breath.
Because all I know how to do
is to throw my entire body
at a problem,
exhaust myself,
keep pushing.
Perhaps it is my new form
of cutting:
toxic productivity.
A socially acceptable way
to destroy myself.
Like my sister
the schoolteacher
who goes for
three or four days
without sleep
in the summer
as she prepares her room
for the students’ return.
My response to overwhelm
is to sacrifice my body.
I am already readying
the altar
for the huge work project
at the end of the month.
Dreading
but secretly anticipating
how I will martyr myself.
Alchemize my stress.
Turn emotional pain
into physical pain,
something I can deal with.
I only return to her
when I am spent
and exhausted
beyond words.
