how do I find it
when I’m unsure what I’m looking for
does it exist
yes, it’s there
maybe hidden, perhaps not
I don’t see it
much less feel
is it down a particular path
road I’ve yet to explore
under water or on top of a mountain
in the pages of a book
I write
in search of
looking for the not quite lost
hoping for answers
discovery
the next
my life
in the basement a glassed-in cabinet
houses a horde of stuffed rabbits
who starred in stories
demanded by our daughter from her carseat
on daily commutes
an empty mint tin
I may fill it with baby teeth
or a handful of pennies
to rattle and scare
the ghosts away,
or start a collection
of buttons
made of shell or bone
something to refill it
with purpose
But who I am fooling?
It will go back in drawer
keeping its promise
Good morning, good morning,
we say as we pass
each other in the hall
between bathroom and beds
sleep still leaking
from our eyes
the sun just tapping
against the blinds
father and daughter
the two early risers
in a house of three,
counting pets seven,
this molasses dance
with a girl on the edge
of becoming someone
I won’t soon recognize
some morning
when saying good morning
is too much to bear.
I can’t begrudge him that
disagreement is allowed
seeing as we are so diversified
humans come with different capacities
somewhere along the line we carved narrow passageways
disallowing divergence
divisiveness grew when we could no longer transgress these corridors
returning to the expanded view where walls crumble to become fertilizer for the fields long neglected
I think this is what we crave.
thinking these carvings tell a story of learned experience
we’ve created a world with definitions too tight to button.
he lives his way experiencing what he will
I live mine hoping
for more.
Nothing exists but pain –
breath-sucking, inescapable
smother. I’m drowning
in a sea of it, my ears
full of wordless
tortured-animal wails
which emanate, somehow,
from my own lungs.
My body is a melon
halved by a slow knife.
Orange flashes inside eyelids,
garbled voices, blood
spilled over white sheets.
Time is agony. Death
might be welcome until
the howls abruptly give way
to kitten cries close by
from someone new –
beautiful bruised plum
of a creature drawn to light
from the depths of my womb.
I don’t know how love
instantly overtakes ache,
but I marvel at the eclipse.
it’s always been
