In my favorite photo, you are propped
up on pillows, swallowed by a pale
blue hoodie. Raw timber walls
of the first rustic cabin frame
a view our cove on Chase Lake. 

You hated having your picture taken,
you hated being cold, but in this frozen
minute, your eyes sparkle behind
oversized glasses, your hands hug
your first cup of coffee. 

I remember how you loved
this rustic cabin tucked under pines,
loved swimming in the lake’s spring-fed
waters. How you would sit on the screen
porch as evening light faded,

listen to the chatter of grandkids
bedded down in the loft. This slice
of sandy ground with its fifty feet
of shoreline was everything a miner’s
daughter from Scranton ever wanted. 

People like to trample over me
A quiet stone on their path
I don’t move or crumble 
They do bad things and
Cross my boundaries  
I walk away silent 

Told I’m easy
Wired to freeze
not fight or flight
I consider both sides
Analyze what I learned
Then cut them out my life

strawberry-feta salad held
in a tamper-proof container
a reminder of two summers back
standing day after day in a black hat
and an always-stained green t-shirt
your voice floating through car speakers
during the ten-minute drive home
startling silence when i hang my keys
or booming male voices shouting
words they don’t entirely mean

Scraping up what defines an actual artist
The dried paint on the corner of the table 
The stories that grew up like tall weeds from old men on the porch
The music
The spoons
The sounds that drew the neighbors in
The agriculture that planted the notion
Of
The beauty of a farmhand
The beauty of the field
These old men that told stories
That got passed down to other old men’s stories
That got passed down to the children 
The folklore of creatures that prowled our backyards
And poked at our curiosities with sticks
A century of books, little simple enrichments that
Came from the land 
The time
The sky
It’s buried under the rocks of our youth 
Our pain
We are all artists, planted by hands
On the side of the hill
Where puppets dance on our heads and laugher
Ferments in the trees and seeps out 
In the hands
of a switch-carrier
That falls to their knees in blood
And begs for a full restart of events
In the eyes of all who saw
What it could have been
And what it has created

Today you’re a princess

Tomorrow you’re Batman

Your ability to transform

Astounds

My favorite kid chameleon

The aqua canning jars
line the counter,
drenched in years of secrets
secured under lids of zinc and porcelain.
Seeds, those trapped air bubbles 
adorn the glass and whisper age like
the bend of a dogwood tree.
Seams, glass zippers fuse memories.
The jars are empty now,
a mere decorative splash of vintage.
Once they were full of whisked and boiled
ingredients, unspoken expectations
of gravity and grace.
Her finger pulse against the jars,
the kneading of bread, reaching for
sheets on a clothesline,
braiding a child’s hair.

one
thousand
two
hundred
ninety-ish days since my last               (but who’s counting?)  
                                                      dance

and I still go to bed worried in the morning I’ll have sore feet

Listen. Labour is 

I dyed my hair red to match my heart,
to match your heart, to match your hair.
You are the childhood best friend. I am still
the one left waiting. You vanished for a year,
slipped from my presence one gilded summer. 
I vanished for a year too, emptied out eyes,
watching the dye run down the sink everyday,
red swirling into a black hole, draining me.
You went on living your life. Mine corroded
by my own hands. Does the gravity of loss
even touch you. You loved me. You love me.
This is a given. We will never mean nothing
to each other, the past always stains the present,
and it lives on in the haunt of what once was.
But you will never fully see me how I am now,
burning the tread of my shoes off walking circles.
My tongue, too, never lets anything die without
memorializing, without a thousand iterations
of sorry, and I wish it was different. You bleed
into every page, invite yourself to my dedications.
You stopped writing poetry, I let it consume me.
that was the first thing I thought of in the hospital:
my poems and the things I would leave to you,
how they would find you to pass on my relics,
how I’d let you edit every line, eclipse me wholly.
You are the only person I’d trust with my words.
You once shared them, finished my sentences.
Now I do and become everything alone. Now I give
myself to memories yet sometimes I do not think
of you when pacing the halls, driving home, dark.
But often I do. I press silver-white eyeshadow
to the inner corner of my eyes how you used to.
I cover my roots. With the fake freckles I might’ve
looked like your sister. I was your sister once.
You’re coming back, but not as everything you were,
still you are something lastingly beautiful, even if 
we have disconnected from our orbit. I am begging,
let me be yours again, finish this poem for me.