Pinpricks
As I peak through the blinds
as I close them at night
and see pinpricks of stars,
part of me knows
how much I’m missing
not being out there under them
while I’m safely inside.
The candle scatters gold overnight,
But I never believe it might reach home
I once saved devotion (now a trampled desert) under aches,
If I ever hold the impossible again
I might reach
The fine stream of hope
Folded deep inside.
where the text on my screen
is in white
on white
and the work’s
humming in the back of the brain.
Tomorrow’s poem bubbles
on that proverbial burner there,
just beyond the memories,
just around the hesitation
just before the sleep clears
and the dream slips slips slips into that crust
around the eyes before I wipe it away.
The lecture series to fashion
haunts my spine in that place
where my dad’s voice warns
when did you get the assignmenti
and when will you begin?
and how long do you have to write this?
Yeah, dad—
I’m working.
Even though I napped today
and scrolled today
and pumped some iron today
and watched the clouds today
over the Sandias
and went to sit
in the box-chapel
where the blue blue blue sky
slants above the face in the icon
where silence lives in his almond eyes.
grief stretches out before me
wide and golden like a continent of sand
mouth-muffled by its own enormity and heat
a million million unmet wants pant
with dried-out tongues
grief stretches out before me
soft and golden like a too-large cat
making a home out of my body
A greedy catechism of maybe tomorrow
tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow
until the very last tomorrow
when I bring him wilflowers from my garden and say
I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner
I didn’t know how to let you love me
It’s okay to feel overwhelmed and want to cry
even if it seems like the emotional trigger is too small and doesn’t warrant it.
I’m sorry you feel nauseous.
I’m sorry your head pain is worse lately.
I’m sorry that work is so stressful.
I’m sorry the music is loud and the environment is so stimulating.
I, too, wish we could go home.
Be gentle with yourself.
Take it slowly.
You can do this.
I love you.
Staring in a Nebraskan meadow. Staring
a clicking, whispering ocean I know
I’m gonna become one day but actually
I’m staring at you, forgetting my arms
and your shoulders can sense and seconds
are eating. The original Bambi on my desk
and my bedroom smells like skin and apple.
Just staring through the boulder of my skull
at you behind me now makes my eyes water.
It gets crashing inside. I lost my smelling years
before the pandemic but maybe you can
smell the aster. I want you to smell the aster.
The rain could make me look naked today
but I’m submitting to the will of God.
Teenagers sitting in a basement trying
to be good. I joined them because my cousin
was going and I am interested in being good,
but I became so tired meeting them all.
So much people making my body weak.
Then I came here to a college dormitory,
summer yet reddened, a bee
ready to die on life’s palm if life dares.
What happens when you over water a flower?
it fucking dies!
So I guess I’ll bleed out from the thorns on my flowercrown
Sometimes I wish that a flower could never drown
But flowers bloom and flowers wilt
Drying dying in the ground
No more petals to be found
And I know we’ll always be a family
But war has never felt less rosy than this
I woke up this morning and my neck hurt.
My throat was hoarse,
and the sheet was slipping off the corner of my new mattress.
It’s later than I wanted to rise,
but in the dawn of summer,
I don’t care enough yet to do anything about it.
The cut I accidentally acquired on my thigh last night
is still bright red and crescent-shaped.
I couldn’t find a band-aid,
so I put some cream on it and called it good enough.
It’s a beautiful day, and I could go out.
Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t.
Maybe I could clean my messy room,
but the cups that have yet to be taken downstairs,
or the laundry that has to be folded
aren’t really bothering anyone right now.
Poetry just wants to relax and people-watch today.
Stonecrop clings like starfish,
pink and spotted on the rock, and I
still cling to peppy illusion. I don’t
think I’m alone in my hope
that if we hold out
our stardust arms,
stretch our starry palms,
maybe we
can turn the tide,
wear razor cliffs
down to a shine.
Call me naïve,
but what’s that quote?
The one from Margaret Meade?
Never doubt
that small a group of committed
suckers
can change the world.
