Morning
I rise from a restful sleep
and take a deep breath.
I recognize the privilege
To rise.
To breathe.
To exist.
To live.
Pine Mountain Cemetery IV
Tressie
Little mop head with tangled curls,
Sunshine carried on her head
With a giggle spread out for us.
See the rock marked with a T?
Heart shaped, a daisy chain with
Pink clover captures the tiny stone.
Her runaway horse spooked by hiss
And strike of the sunning rattlesnake.
Our screaming girl held hard until
Her foot seized by stirrup dragged
Her down the rock strewn cliff.
No chance to save girl or horse.
Myth she became, the child lost
To a fate too cruel to bear. Her
Mother rests in the nearest space.
Her sisters spin tales of her beauty
Too rare to keep, sweetness too rich
For such mortals as those four be.
My studio today: a shabby grey wooden picnic table
beneath a canopy of trees
beside a rambling creek
I hear the quiet buzzing of wings and see shadows dancing around me
Warm and dappled sunlight melts the misty dew from the clover
And warms my back
Sweet freshly cut grass and honeysuckle scent the air
Birds trill and sing some with hushed voices some cry out loud
I sit at the edge of the woods
this gentle place belongs to me this moment this morning
I trust the touch of healing
the breeze of inspiration
the balm of gratitude
i sit here
and let myself
take something i love
and somehow make it into you
in the same moment
i shake my head
at the passing thought
of you on my mind
you make me sick;
simultaneously revolting
me and reeling me in,
inabling me to
look away
thats what you infected
me with, leaving an imprint
on me like some abstract
birthmark
you remind me of
the one on my hip,
nobody sees it, and i always
keep it hidden, but its a part of me
i’ll never grow out of
this is how i know
ill never love myself,
because i still take a part
of me, and make it
into you
Three little vines —
I can not tell them their names or their experiences —
sprout towards the coin-op laundry machine
from a basement window in the back of my building.
The pair that grow closer together easily reach out ten inches.
The plastic Christmas tree that’s sat there for ten months
has only accumulated a collective of cardboard boxes
patient at the end of the storage units —
I do not identify, I only turn and see it back there —
It sits and listens.
“When a thing is wick…”
– Dickon, The Secret Garden
Once upon a time: There was
a time, there was
a place, a bit of earth and dreams
climbed trellis breath
with ivy fingers sent to sky—
I bury words and messages
(myself), like squirrels hide nuts in Fall,
forced-remission-missives—
malignant sparrows
til they’re fed.
For now,
I bury angry knuckles
in the soil, attempt to spread
these river-rocks
together, in a tryst,
a twist
of something beautiful,
but hidden, sleeping, dead and dying—
corners of my yard
I will (re)build. I will
shape this zen to garden— not retreat;
this is not
retreat.
A healer cannot heal
from an empty grave.
A lock cannot be
broken, without a key.
I don’t miss his callous
misdeeds. Sad old
crank, he’s beyond
recall. Why do I live
backward with tattered
snapshot-stuffed shoeboxes & tawny
maps? I rummage, seeking
what? Am I happy
at 12 in my first
two-piece, a stretchy
black & white jersey with
sassy fringe draped
across my bust? Sophomore,
I am hiding my D-cups under baggy
cardigans & blazers. I tied
them down with a long
swatch of cheesecloth. In the blue-lit
room where he died, decades
passed, my hair brindled
with gray. I held
his translucent hand as his moment
closed. I whispered, you
can let go, wishing
him no harm but feeling no
sadness. No one
should die
alone. I don’t
miss him.
