Intangible as heat hazes,

As you threw things into the fire
I felt the smoke becoming a prayer
In my mind each piece had a color
And they stacked upon one another
like the sunset. 

Redbud             Cinnamon Broom
  Russian Sage                       A Rosebush

Moon rise, worm moon
in a bowl of liquid gold
gleaming froth 
of dreamy rainbow bog

My mind is on fire with music
and a thirst for knowledge 
I’m not sure what primordial place
it comes from

The light grasses catch on fire
we catch weed blaze in a bowl
The buckets we couldn’t pull apart
are full of holes
making them handy sieves for
even distribution of droplets

Silhouetted portraiture 
in green and pink and daffodil
colored light
Peach and magnolia blossoms 
preen like the last glimpse of life

The excitement of spring 
is a freshly wound string
around a yo-yo world
                    

I never wanted to be like her, 
arguing against compliments likening our appearances,
listing off a dozen ways I look like him

She never thought I would be like her, 
introducing me to anyone as the apple who rolled miles from the tree,
the impossibly different fruit with bruises and bumps

I never wanted her to be like this, 
ignoring the signs and direct utterances,
this is emotional blackmail

I never wanted to be treated like this, 
fighting against her vision versus my reality, 
I lost myself and adopted shortcomings that were not mine to take

I never thought I would arrive here, 
at the crossroads of submission and self-preservation,
yearning to be understood

I still want to be hers, 
but, perhaps, on my terms, too

how to let me run wild
just slip me into moonlight & watch my head spin
                    is it madness or the remnants of stale love
                    tumbling around in my slowbrain?
                    marbled thoughts rolling & rocking
                    to my undoing,
the moon is spotlighting me into dance & ruin,     i am
                    merely a puppet to him

It mostly feels like
nothing is enough.
The precipice grows
more perilous with
each fall of
my foot.
I scramble
for something to
cling to,
though in my desperation,
I am not
strong enough
to stop the fall.
I have tried to let go,
too many times. 
But three hands
that I would know in life
and in death
and in every space between
reach to pull me back up,
too many times.
Every time. 
It mostly feels like
nothing is enough,
nothing but the hands of
my sisters.

I think about my chipped tooth and the way you shook your hand after throwing the punch

Blood dripping from your knuckles and down your fingers

It splattered against the asphalt

Crimson mixed with salvia as I spat the words you made me eat back out

Metallic and salt taste a lot like shame and guilt

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand

you wrapped your hand in an old t shirt

I find myself still running my tongue over the chipped tooth

no longer sharp and jagged

now a smooth indention

A piece of me changed by you

You took so much

And left nothing but broken parts

Before you start, yes I did get myself into this mess,
I thought it was necessary
And in my mind, there was such a problem
That I needed to do this,
But to the common eye, everything was fine,
You saw through the static I created,
I had to fix it, not for you, though, for me,
I had to clear the static, no matter what it took,
And so that’s why I’m here,
I’ve been trapped for hours, maybe days
In a dungeon of my own creation,
I could escape, but I can’t,
I’ll have to work my way out of this prison.

O blatantly bold body
Delicately plumed party crasher
Hurling a fashion of flux and billow
Flaunting every beautiful blue nuance  

O eccentric gatekeeper
Hoarder of mermaids
Hard-fondled bones
Fins and doubloons
The shrouded dark  

O prima donna performer
Busker    bewitcher    ballerina
Seductress of surf
All sandcastles and giggles
The artist’s white whale  

O infinite music maker
A lilt    a lick    a lullaby   
Drumfunk your thrashing waves
Softly chamber your ripples
Pink noise me to sleep  

But when I wake I’m only
A wisp    a wick    a woolgatherer
Some dune’s frail shadow
Musing a distant shore
   
The sun warming
My deeps and shallows
The moon silently
Swaying my tides  

The imperceptical slant of Missouri 
prairie has a couple of pimples
at Knob Noster. They are barely knobs,
just slight rises that stick up 
in the 360° of flat.  Like all things
in this scraggly land the name’s
deceptive, singular when it should plural.
Some 19th century pundit declared
that Noster was latin for “our”,
thus the name means “Our Knob”.
There is no proof of this
– maybe someone just had
a sharp-edged mind for alliteration.

Both knobs host housing developments
of well-kept bungalows with a view.
Many Knob Noster homeowners 
work at Whiteman Air Force Base
built in the “Blue Flats” at the south end
of town. (The convenience store clerk said 
you didn’t have to be indigenous 
to appreciate the irony of the AFB name.)
After WWII  the base was used as a site
for Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles.
A house for nuclear weapons!
This put the people of Knob Noster
in the bull’s eye for a World War III attack.
(The clerk said if that happened, you might
as well get it over with ASAP.)
Today the base contains our country’s fleet
of stealth bombers, capable of flying 
11,000 miles with an in-flight refuel
to deliver a nuclear strike.

I think it might be possible to live
in Knob Noster, picnic with the family
in prarie grass, fish in the local stream,
drive to KC everyday for work, never
look through the fence at the bombers, 
go deaf whenever they took off.
I guess I’d know what to do.