Leaning solely on God today 
Every breath comes out as a prayer
Asking for healing for my dear friend
Never doubting the power of God
Interceding with love
Neverending hope
Giving my all to petition for my friend

I was drowning
in that familiar old heaviness,
trying to claw my way up.

Reaching for a surface
that might not exist.

The uncertain, yet familiar darkness.
Fighting to keep the immense heaviness
at bay, if only for a moment longer.

Realizing,
after so much time trapped,
you find the darkness
staring back. 

tasmanian devil
whirling in dervish
options available radial

our collision preempted
I identified least fatal pathing,
full sent into your life

illocution illuminates
jagged vertices of heart
healed with much scar tissue

as a dervish must rotate,
she must return to her motion:
tornadoes elsewhere

A reporter interviews a woman who had been

swept off her boat while white water rafting. He

wants to know how it felt to be sucked down into

the whirling water, especially knowing, did she

know four people had died because the melting

snow pack made the water run high? How

did it feel to be so close to danger?

Did she know she might die?

I want to know about the thrill of reaching up

through that white water before the surging

wave dragged her under. Did her heart beat

with wonder at the swirling water before it

pushed her up and over the rocks? Not

was she afraid but was she filled with

wonder? Did she love it? Was

that why she did it?

My mother discovered a baby bird

caught beneath the black tomato net

draped around her blueberry bush.

It stretched yet-weak wings

and found the strength

to somehow fly away,

its mother waiting

with a worm

on the outside.

                 ***   ***   ***

I wonder if the chipmunk caught

beneath the same net loosely draped

around my mother’s blueberry bush

died from starvation, dehydration,

or some other less-physical

need,

the soft, tiny shell of its body

cold beneath the heat

of summer sun.

                 ***   ***   ***

Does life, and death, and tragedy come

down to who we know

is waiting

on the other side

of a net

loosely draped

over my mother’s fledgling

blueberry bush?

                 ***   ***   ***

This morning, another

chipmunk

scampers in the yard.

is the space between us. Your place in bed

is a shrill pitch in the hollows of my ears

reminding me your pillow is cold. You cradle

my ribs in your fingers, make me ache without

cracking them, though you really could and I

sometimes wish for it. I hide the thought of you

in my tights, sheets of sandpaper shaped like

your jaw, raising the skin and counting down

sleeps where my dreams whisper tales to me.

Your every breath on Sunday is a

dollar I keep. I can afford everything

except you. You hoard all the colors

in your hotel room. Packed into your

suitcase. I am now our mile-wide bed.

I envy the rim of pop cans that get to

taste you and be sipped from while our tongues

meet and cannot tangle for the glass

between our skin. I chew the loneliness

and it is packed into my teeth, a cavity.

Savor the weekend and starve the week.

The archway woven in morning glories

with your absence inside. If I step

through it will we once again intertwine?

I’m so homesick for your chest and I

could drown you until you’re gasping for life

just to take a shallow bath in you.

I grieve Wednesdays because when was it last

that we glued our fingers together on

a Wednesday?  I am now just a half,

a third, a quarter of the dollar

that I am always trading you for.

Monday is the space between us

I had to have my mom tuck me in every night as a child

Sleep has always been so hard for me

So she obliged

I remember whenever my parents turned off the TV and started padding down the hall

Anxiety would rise in my throat

I remember one time staring at the ceiling so long that the sun rose and I heard the whirring of my mom’s hairdryer

Most of the time, I would sleep on the couch

I had a dream there once that I walked right into the ocean

I woke up holding my breath

I don’t hold my breath anymore

Now I tuck myself in

I lie in bed
A poem in my head
Words sit on my tongue
at the tip of my lip
to tired to write
or record the idea
afraid I’ll lose my thought

My body’s worn down
Each and every bone hurts
on my shoulders and back
not something a massage heals
or a pill can kill
it’s all age related and exercise driven
I refuse to stop just push on like I’m eleven

I drift off to sleep
suddenly I’m in heaven
A heated exchange
A new lover revealed
I awaken for work
Eyeball my weekly schedule  
I feel fatigued looking

the tree’s

knobby
puckered
lichen lips
susurrate

beckon
cathy come closer
kiss my lusciousness

it was if its words
were spoken
through a whispered hiss
passing out of labial
looking petrified fungi

i smile and nod
at the phallic structure’s
ugliness

then give thanks
i still look good enough
for a fungus on a tree
to hustle me

I can recycle this dying fridge
for fifty dollars

if I can make loaves
out of those bills

I can spend sweat
on the dusty baseboards

if one arm is stronger
than the will of the mattress

I can trade breath
with my magnolia tree

if I pluck her dead leaves
from my gutters

I can hold this sunset

if I let her stumble
through my fingers