the moon still calls
like when i was a child
knees pulled up close to my chest
perched on the big windowsill in the quiet house
the only one awake in all the world
the moon still calls
even after so many years of not listening
when i mistook pixels for pixies
phone screens for faeries
scrolling for seeing
the moon still calls
and i find ways to answer her again
chin cupped in my hands
gazing at her fullness
she’s not angry with me afterall
and my eyes are young again
Now. The Cyber Security class on the last
Monday of the Academic Year with mostly
freshman.
The chapter of my life
when lullabies and midnight cuddles
Diapers and vomit;
when mothering was a verb more than noun.
Emerging from the fog of new mothering
title in hand.
I awake one morning: a cartoon mule,
my new body cel-shaded
three monochrome colors–
a Pleasure Island reject–
but nobody bats an eye.
I keep a pair of glasses,
three missing teeth, a goaty beard
that is drawn into the shape of my new head,
the stubborn attitude that has plagued me
almost all my life.
My cartoon ears can hear
like a microphone. Watch them oscillate
like some sort of satellite, my cloven fumbling
for my cell phone, my lighter–
the daily rituals that tether me to form.
I clop against linoleum floors, a caricature
framed in doubt again, doused in ink
and worry.
Outside the people walk
so freely with their human legs,
smooth skin, short teeth.
I reconcile my new penciled-in truth–
to lean into gray shadow,
this ragged shading.
The realness is slipping
into memory and I’m reminded
of the ocean, its skies just another body
bathed in rain.
I remember we held hands
so perfectly in the deepening light,
the air around us dusking a type
of lead never erased.
I used to write you buckets
of words, letting them pour across
the space between us as I prayed
a bridge or a boat.
Your hands were the bridge
You’re slipping from mind
You were my favorite ocean
You, I prayed, You.
You are so busy eating,
the dirty black crayons.
In the backseat of mom’s car.
To color the words,
of your anger and frustration.
In the backseat,
there are more crayons.
Other colors, for you.
To draw the pictures,
in your harsh language.
You just don’t see them,
or the other passengers bleeding out,
after the impact.
Are we there yet?
No.
We are not.
The woods were frigid,
I miss it there
with you without a care
inhaling breaths of frosty air,
between laughter we would share
the snow showed the glow of the suns rising light
as we mused along to the song of the northern shrike;
listening with much delight,
in our tree house of great height!
You worship my body
but despise my soul
The body is without major flaw
but the interior is tattered
Torn and stained
you can gut me
refurbish
change all the things you distaste
in the end
I’ll be the make and model you always dreamed
but something about me
will be off
you’ll never be fully happy
with me in my entirety
