I sit at the edge of the woods
in the amber dusk.   
The last light has fallen off the trees.   
As the veil whispered its fall,   
like the swallow lithe and quick,   
I remember    
as sure and as permanent as air  
the voices of ancestors  
running on a loop.  
Gone but not forgotten,  
they have altered who I am.   
I believe   
I’m held in their hands,  
architecture of wing and bone,   
pliant and forgiving.      

The waking world is wavering.  
I feel myself falling   
as when a tectonic plate shifts.   
I could not remember all their words  
but I can tell you this:  
they spoke secret words,  
joyous seeds of hope:  
You are almost of the sky,  
a thumbprint of divinity.  
Your concaving, hungry heart,  
both clumsy and graceful,   
locked into a perpetual dance 
despite your shadows, your scars,  
all the knots you can’t undo yourself.    
Sometimes their words became waves   
a river in the blood,   
the balm of gratitude.     

And the dark pools,  
stretching feelers    
putting the moon to bed—
the bone white revelation.   
I fall sleep in a green cradle  
beneath the canopy of trees,    
dream of things unseen,   
leaving one world and entering another    
layering itself over itself  
to grasp the deeper meaning,   
choking out     
the weight of the world.   
I’m a shapeshifting crow   
unwavering like the wind.    
I am the night.
I grow into moss.    
When I open my eyes,
everything shimmers.    

*Cento using lines, including title, found, and slightly altered, in the,Lexpomo 2020 anthology Maps We Forgot to Bring, in the following order: Melissa Olson, Suzanne Gilmore, Melissa Olson, cl kirby, Gregory D. Welch, Steven Daugherty, Anne Hayden, Shaun Turner, Jay McCoy, Melissa Olson, Misty Skaggs, Savana Rae, Little Bird, Pat Owen, Aaron Reding, Brigit Truex, Callie Budrick, Meghan Goins, H. A. Spinelli, Tania Horne, Kristi Maxwell, Laura Foley, Sylvia Ahrens, M. Wells, Gregory D. Welch, E. VanWinkle-Johnson, Jerielle Hanlon, Tony Wheary, Stephanie Mojica, cl kirby, H. A. Spinelli, BlackGirlFli, Suzanne Gilmore, Jamie Mann, Joseph Allen Nichols, Dangerfield Yella, Gregory D. Welch, Brigit Truex, Suzanne Gilmore, B. G., Pat Owen, Christina Joy, Kathleen Gregg, Venecia Proctor, Ryan Oppegard, Jerielle Hanlon, Bethany Robinson, Jerielle Hanlon, Misty Skaggs, B. G., Pat Owen.

my father will never know how much i hate him
making it hard to know which i hate more
him
or
the idea of never avenging my       innocence 
forced maturity 
seemingly older than my earthly age 
i will never understand just truly how old i am

i saw my mother today in the

marching ants
violet violets
dancing bees
first tomato
waving leaf

i witnessed my mother give RiSe to the birds
                                                                                  today.

Awake! the glabrous moon has stretched her shift.
The sun this morning, a bonfire’s extravagant
orange-rust mesa.
The tree beside our porch bears
mayapple fruit, swing-spirit tickling.
Ghost cicada perches, wrapped in the whelm of morning wind.
It’s a hackberry tree I see.
Sometimes I travel in the wilds of my mind.
In January, the epiphany star said “Find.”
I’ve found it hard.
I pin a stonefly to my lapel—
I need stronger verbs to plunk.
I am resting the writing self
beneath fabrics and flowers in a breezy room,
glass trinkets on fold out tables.
Maybe the best days are water days.
Bless uncountable poets.
Thanks to faithful fickle June.
“If you wrote a poem a day, it would take,”
I tell my students,
“words.”

This poem was written using first lines from a whole bunch of the poems written today. I plan to gather other first lines and write a few more. I am sorry I have not been more productive or attentive this month, and I am really looking forward to settling into everyone’s work to make the anthology. I have loved seeing all your/our poems, and all the comments on each other’s work. ” The French bid adieu” (to quote another first line) but I’ll just say, “I’ll see you in your words.” Pauletta

an old man once made love to me so viciously

i could feel the acid rising up in my throat

it was always the dinner we had just shared

that he paid for, i’d licked the plate for crumbs

an old man made of sawdust and pig skin

taut, sun worn flesh like a fresh banjo’s head

he wanted tears, sweat, a now revisited meal

he wanted to give freely to take away wholly

through duress and destruction and decorum

an old man once owned property in the city

an impressive estate and a pendulum of a boy

chunks of meat rise in my throat once again

sausage link fingers hold dirt under yellowed nails

a boy has a blank expression while fondled roughly

my collar is now wrinkled and he steadies my balance

as bile pour from my nose into my tiny cupped palms

we cross the street
to avoid the man
who lives under the bridge

maybe the best days are water days
blue, often vast
brief for me yet splendid 
my favorite of the memories 
sometimes alone and sometimes, like today, together 
I shared the ocean with her, my daughter
we cherished, sunburnt and windswept
the day as well as each other 
last of June but much like a middle
hello, goodbye and all that’s in between 
someday we’ll stand on the other side
looking back, and forward like we did today

As surely as I do depart 
to lie fixed in this earthly tomb 
I am soon sure to be released 
from the depths of this worldly womb 
Disrobed of my organic form 
burst free of wounds and pain and scars 
I’ll chase the wind as it blows west
and soar to dance among the stars

*I was a little late on the very first day of the challenge so I have been posting one day behind all month. This is my twenty-ninth poem. Since I can only post once a day, I decided to share the final poem on my social media via video. You can find me on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/sbpearceauthor

I will also post it on my Instagram and get it on my website later tonight.

Thank you everyone. It has been an extraordinary pleasure and experience to “meet” and learn from you. You have inspred me to keep going and to look at the world with new wonder. I have truly enjoyed reading all the wonderful poetry and I appreciate all of the valuable feedback. I learned a lot this month and I swear, I will master that Palindrome form before the end of the year!

Fabrics and flowers in a breezy room
And eternal whispering shudder-shiver of tree leaves
Turning us over and over
You are a whistle of river’s laughing sigh
And I a shadow of shade mirroring on your surface

Our summer couch cool and empty
Shake the fruit out