Underwater
swimming is my favorite.
Outside sounds are muffled.
A bigger outside world drowned out.
Water, synchronized breath, strokes and kicks..
Brain noise canceled counting every stroke in my head.
Thighs are tightly squeeszed together giving my hips power
and keeps my legs straight along with pointed, and flexed toes.
Palming my hands and pulling water backward helps speed up my execution.
I cool down on my back focusing on my flutter kick imagining my back fat will go.
Gaunt and tall with a starveling face, he
wears a leather apron with an assortment
of hanging stars and sheathed blades,
a broadsword strapped across his back
as he walks, practicing the presence of the hilt.
He doesn’t need anyone to teach him
His creed is his cutlass, to create or to kill
He realizes all the experts were wrong
He turns his face to God, his knives flashing
like silver fish jumping hand to hand
If you’ll show me the truth, I’ll follow it
He is a priest now and he is flawed
He knows a class of people whose teeth
devour the poor and needy from the earth
He knows the grave, the barren womb,
and the leech are never satisfied
He knows steel brings heaven to earth
and the air is a fair gift for slicing
Eternity abides in him like a mirthful oil
taken up residence in his body, hallowed.
He is anointed, but not of the earth,
Look at me, he says. I’ve done nothing wrong.
This milkshake boogies as
the sun streams in.
I’ve been trying to describe the clouds for a few nights – the
perfect mix of indigo and turquoise.
If you’d have told me that grief can be a
steeple in that sky, soul connections lite bounce happily
in; this summer when I can hold it
all in its pure, perfect dualism…I’m
a stylist for a wedding –
well let’s just say your Five Guys milkshake would
be life dancing too.
a tiredness which brims from exhaustion
doing one’s best yet coming up short
or it seems so, anyway
no one really knows the entirety
but it’s warm now, summer’s here
and I’d rather not accept what I don’t have to
I can choose
three words nearly as strong as “I love you”
truly just another way to say “I love
myself”
Heavenly father,
bless our harried commute and
forgive us our honks.
yesterday
you would have turned 31
but
they burst into your home
forgot
you were human
and
they never cared
(louisville streets still run red with your blood)
the cover
of the AARP magazine.
Raise your hands if you
belted out his lyrics with
crackling community pool speakers
or behind your bedroom door,
your hairbrush turning microphone.
In my mind, I’m a kid singing along,
just a ripped-jean, big-haired Gen Xer,
livin’ on a prayer, pledging
to be there for someone.
And though I’ll still perform it
like I’m auditioning for the band,
I won’t give love a bad name.
I won’t share mock-indignation
about the passage of time and
how life is spent in too-quick moments–
for we are still here, in food kitchens and schools,
streets alive with the melody of living
even amidst struggle’s cacophony.
There is beauty in endurance,
in honoring the worthiness of each soul.
We can celebrate that,
stick kindness on the cover.
Let’s never say goodbye
to the potential our one life offers.
