packed my heart into the pantry
sharing shelf life with saltines,
almonds, and ghosts. i left my
lungs in the freezer, under ice
cubes and last year’s harvest
my bones are stored in the
utensil drawer, my palm
a ladle for soup.
as long as you reach for me
reach for me, reach for me.
Have you ever heard of time?
She’s an elusive woman,
yet somehow she always finds me
in the darkest alleys lit solely
by a streetlight and cigarette.
And she greets me as my feet
hit the pavement knighted by
million dollar homes. Fresh concrete
never felt better on my knees.
That woman sips black coffee
on my porch, forever at six in
the morning. She nods at the
strollers and wheelchairs passing
by. Time never ceases to impress
me when my roses are fading in
the garden and my table begins
to rust. She teases me before crossing
busy streets at rush hour and
after lighting fireworks on the
holidays. She smiles softly at me.
Howling moon, a deep belly echoing out from a raw throat
Call of her wild carried with the whistle of the wind
Crimson dripping
Puddles intermingling with the wetness of the dampened grass
As if the power of this pool of red
Energetically connecting with the grounded
Force of that deep pull from below
As above her womanhood
Freeing itself conjoining with the force of Mother Nature
A history of sisters
The coven of power pulled from the blood
Not the blood of the mysterious patriarchy
That has attempted power and control
Demeaning and punishing the flow of this energy
Casting shame and doubt over the power that is our bodies
Here she is
gently,
for once
i’ll forgive myself
undo all the harm
myself: physcial
& emotional
i’ll climb
the sun-beam staircase
bursting through the clouds
i’ll hug her again
i’ll get to touch him forever
i’ll love myself
Again and again,
you spring up every year.
you’ve invaded my heart crowding out
all thoughts that were native and my own.
My younger self delighted in your blooms,
how your taste and nectar prevaded
my tongue and words.
A safe space for the rabbits and coyotes
in the woods, shelter in brush.
But now I constantly battle you, with hedge
trimmers, push mowers, snips, posion,
fire, diesel, tears, anger, fustration,
why wont you leave??
I cannot breath with the crowding foliage,
and ohh so brittle, sharp limbs.
Have you not taken enough? Have
my fences and boundaries not
suffered enough from your continual
push, your inability to to understand this
place is no longer your home?
begone from my garden, my farm, my memory.
leave me and the brambles, the dogwoods, and lillies behind.
You,
sliced open to deliver a perfect son to your god,
crushed by my birth.
I was not the one you wanted.
Abraham poised to kill his child –
to kill everything –
to prove devotion to a bottomless god.
Your son died. You-
prostrated before your god and wearing duplicity like vestments-
begged for a trade, me for him.
“Not the one I’d have chosen,”
your refrain.
Not the one I’d have chosen.
Combing through the muck,
And filling holes in the creekbed
With affirmations
I’m still tired,
Or maybe tired again
Walking to the edge of the water,
And wondering what comes next
Sharing secrets into the wind
That blows between the wet, white lines
Of the eastbound highway
Dry sand and wet sand,
The snow above my head
And the grass to my knees
Combing through the words,
And filling holes on the page
With whatever I can find
It wasn’t a ham sandwich killed her. Likely
it started with the Dexedrine and the crash
diets and only stopped once her heart – warm
and wilder – weakened, broke, dashed –
like half-baked lies Allan led Sue to spread
with rockets, bells, and poetry about some
inconsequential half-eaten ham sandwich
on the nightstand by her deathbed. Her legacy
falsely framed that loneliest kind of lonely. She called
Michelle from London that July night, maybe longing
to linger ‘til dawn after two weeks of sold-out shows
at the Palladium, ecstatic from the standing
ovations with stars shining bright above her prime,
just 32, and a poet not soon to run out of rhyme.
