It’s June again,
sweet young girls in cotton dresses,
church bells chime at dinner hour,
jonquils lifting up their trumpets,
and you and I,
slipping into the winter of our marriage,
the cold shoulder and frozen stare,
I watch you undress and ready for bed,
slower, yes, and battle-scarred, but beautiful,
as defined by these eyes
with their softening focus,
and think how fortunate I am
to be spending June again
with you.
i knew you
in another life
& hated it;
finding myself,
in between your eyes,
choking—
thinking in new water,
we’re the last ones left
unable to take deep breaths;
bleeding from the mouth
till the heart softens over
& our carved wings lapse
(to fall)
from mounted cattle
we hung pride by the door
this side of the Kentucky river
i think about wrong times &
the dilema of dying young
Anything but being a victim
Waking up from this dream isn’t fair,
because I can still taste you when my tongue’s tip traces my bottom lip
The morning sun pulls me from memories of us together
Young
Wild
Unbridled
We are our most primal selves in the cover of the night
but I want you here next to me
under these linen covers
darkness shrinking, becoming small shadows on old wooden floors
where I want us both to step barefoot from slumber
towards elsewhere together
Old
Content
Restrained
Dreaming isn’t fair,
because it’s not with you.
Begging Sweet Revenge Changes Friday
Tell me, he says, with his tail in the air,
If you know how much I love them,
Why sometimes there are lil’ soups
And sometimes there are not?
It is simple,
I say to him, It is because good things
Do not always come easy and sometimes
you have to catch a mouse.
I grew tired of counting places,
leaving town a year too late. I’ve settled
now where the slow twining creek is clay
brown & ripples through the wildwood
like a wedding train. I grew tired
of counting places & so I turned to
stable shelter, prayed to tame my gypsy
course. I marked the proper names, studied
the bottom of the slow twining creek.
Burrowing mayfly, speckled hellbender.
Alabama cavefish. In water, how their lacy-jelled
eggs trembled. I counted their places under
river rock & branch. Dreaming, grit-brown
water rolled over me like a wand
& in the slow twining creek I transformed
to slick-shelled mussels. Nudged
by dust & gravel bits, cradled by mud,
I spit pearls from trouble & count my place
in the slow twining creek & its slack embrace
I am a mountain
my head the crest
hair long fog clouds
that float slopes
valleys where deer leap
feed on supple leaves
that vine my feet
I am a woman
with a winter tree rooted
in my crown. I capture
a silver sliver moon in the lacuna
of my black briar-branches
that pierce the loopy blue, blue sky
~ Inspired by the art of Amanda Clark
Everyone that I know has had relationships finish
Some had amicable closures
Others were hurt, but still got answers
Our ending was not so kind
We were torn from each other
In a motion so violent we were torn with it
A life line that was cut too short
Rope fraying at the lacerated end, its twine reaching out for the missing part of it
Exposed nerve sensitive to even air
Everyone else has closure
Everyone gets to move on
But I still seem to find pieces of you in me
Like we were so tightly bound I lost myself in you
Like I don’t know who to be without you
