The mother house wren chirps alarm
and the need for more sleep
weighs heavy
A pinchy pain twinge in
the shoulder
from sleeping wrong bites
When asked to leave
with bright device
a scold and a cold scoff
you shouldn’t have gone out drinking
served to score one for
the keeper
Late snow dusts a black branch
its sap-life stream
sucks in the last winter wet
to push down deep
to the redbud’s belly
its curled inner fire, cooled
from long months to a faint flow, but
the pulse quickens
when a cerulean warbler
perches to call—
Come! Come! Come!
A fresh forest tablecloth
was spread overnight
a banquet promised soon
to all who wait.
there are two tupperware’s full of soup in our fridge.
they’re over a month old;
i just couldn’t bring myself to throw them out.
she made them at six in the morning
before driving an hour to see me
and she used plant-based meat
because she knows my roommates and i
don’t really eat meat anymore
and then she bought me groceries
and we walked together to the chinese place down the street
and she bought lunch for the house
and then she drove an hour back home.
the soup was really good, too. i’m
sorry
i didn’t finish it.
i want to be mad at you
for almost everything,
but then you make me soup
and i wonder if you
really are trying to change.
you make me soup
and i just miss you
so damn bad.
I like it when a bookshelf cracks
I’d forgotten how quiet night can be.
The road is distant here, the hum
of tires, white noise only. Not as loud
as whisper of wind in trees.
Outside my window, not even insect song.
Just tread and munch and exhale
of horses breathing in the night.
We hold the ancients in our latent memory,
seeking the incarnate to make meaning of the symbolic,
in our need to be alive in these treacherous times.
Every sign and symbol of the sacred binds us
to the darkness, immerses us
in the fluid that made our hearts beat
like the wings and beak of the eagle
that caused Promethius to be born again, and again,
like the wingspan of the albatross returning
to guide me home, and home, and home again
as I searched for the signs that would set me free.
When I drove over the mountain to see you for the first time,
a shark sailed across the sky, powerful, charcoal-grey
in silhouette against rosy-dawn, heralding your birth.
That was before I knew your name, an auspicious sign of the gods
that they were still here, a sign of the one
called by many names across the Pacific,
Tagaloa
Tangaroa
Kanaloa
a god before there was a horizon, a progenitor
of the oceans deep,
of the shark,
of the octopus,
the albatross to watch over.
Now, I see him in you,
golden-ocean eyes, watching and observing,
an ancient soul in a new body,
a mystery, a reminder of the ancient revelation
that we always return to the deep,
to the source, a fusion of sea and sky
where there is no horizon, just us, in the present,
in a symbolic cycle of homecoming.
I don’t want to write this poem
I also don’t want to:
Learn to drive,
Eat healthier food,
Redo my curriculum,
Call my grandma,
Listen to criticism,
Apologize when I do wrong,
Brush my teeth two times a day,
Learn to budget,
Confront conflict,
Cut out relationships that are no longer serving me,
Correct people when they don’t use my pronouns,
Walk in the front of the group,
Make decisions,
Ask difficult questions.
Complete my schoolwork.
Entertain myself.
I don’t want to do any of the things that are good for me,
But I do want to be better.
I wrote the poem.
I have grown up
around my family’s kitchen table.
It still stands in all its glory,
scratches and stains included,
each one telling another story.
Every night I learned
more about my family,
more about myself,
sitting around that table.
The day would stop for us
as we sat down into our
own little world,
revolving around
our little table.
I don’t sit at that table
as much anymore.
Life moves too fast,
there are too many places to be,
and the world doesn’t stop for us anymore.
The table still stands,
but no one sits.
I think about that table where
I grew up,
and wonder when
it changed to past tense.
