early cool
in the magic
of this early cool
you ask me to sit with you
and listen to the Bee Buzz
under the super-bloom
of Sweet Mimosa,
your internal decible
meter rates the vibration
higher than our refrigerator
in the magic
of this early cool
you ask me to sit with you
and listen to the Bee Buzz
under the super-bloom
of Sweet Mimosa,
your internal decible
meter rates the vibration
higher than our refrigerator
Familiar flitter
My nephew saw a blue angel rise
from a polished copper vase
that cradled gravely bits
of my mother. He was chanting
a poem in Hebrew as the electric
blue feathers fanned out
& flew in pieces to the upper corners
of the sanctuary. The roof opened up
& the feathery blue essence tumbled out–-
woosh–-like a speed train into the sky.
You may notice I use the word blue
but it was a blue vision, surrounded
by blue, illuminated blue & received
by blue. You could say it was a hallucination
but several attendees saw it, scraps
of blue traveling up, disappearing.
Great, veined ear of a green elephant. Lined palm lifted in prayer.
Hand-washed laundry hung out to dry. Silk permeated by sun.
Lily pad for a flying frog. Eventual pock-marked parachute.
Lost scale of a giant fish. Mysterious scroll unrolled.
Fissured heart strung up high. Parchment paper valentine.
tw: sexual assault mention
I still remember that night you invited me to sleep in the same bed as you
For years I beat myself up over being too scared to do it
I imagined how you would kiss me
Gentle, tender love
Fueled my delusions with more of the same
Believing the lie that you loved me
Repeated by you so frequently that I had no reason not to trust you
The reality of the situation hit me like a brick six years after
If I would’ve opened that door, you would’ve hurt me
I can see it so clearly, playing on repeat
I see myself opening the door to a dim room illuminated by a single lamp
You look up from your phone, your smirk looks like a villain in a kid’s movie
It’s obvious
Everyone knows you’re leading the lamb to slaughter
Except the lamb, of course
I move the blankets back so that I can get into the bed
Willingly taking part in my own destruction
Hands exploring places no one had ever touched
I never was able to tell you no
You were never able to see my discomfort
You fall asleep with your arm wrapped around my waist
I lay there
Wide-eyed
Wide awake
And I would wish I never opened that door
“If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love…If you yearn…that is a door.”
(since his offering on the 7th, gregory friedman’s blank space with a ? has scratched away at my last two braincells)
clown car circuit aquaduct
clobbering cache chaingang
canolli charcuterie chin-up
chiggerbite clickbait charleston chew
courage clawback cease and desist
clawful cyclone clickity-clack
cakepop cranberry sauce chicago style crust
cottagecore caroline reaper cankersore
clippership cooter brown collapse
clot scism clothesline
courtesy cabinet confessional
cotillion chimney coif
in these pages, dusty controversies,
mendicants versus clergy, disputes
long forgotten. But for Henri of Ghent,
Richard Knapwell, Gerard of Abbeville,
the great Aquinas, Bonaventure—they were as
contested as our culture wars today,
though couched in Sententie that march
in noble Latin through these penned notes,
a later scholar dutifully comparing
what seven centuries past was hot debate.
What wisdom can I learn from his staid
calligraphy, black-inked from broad nib,
strolling gracefully on each page?
Here Bonaventure asks, “Are irrational
creatures to be loved ex caritate?
and how Assisi’s Saint
was seen to be a man
of “great fervor and tenderness”
toward them:
“swallows obey
and are silent”
at his sermons—
what any preacher
might hope for.
