Unimpactful
I sweared to miss
a turtle yesterday.
Today, it laid
on the other side
of the road, dead.
I did my compulsion
and drove on to work.
I’m tired of my actions
not mattering.
I sweared to miss
a turtle yesterday.
Today, it laid
on the other side
of the road, dead.
I did my compulsion
and drove on to work.
I’m tired of my actions
not mattering.
windows open just a sliver
invite pine kissed air into the living room
where I sit in contemplation on a breezy June evening
the horizon looks to catch the falling sun
while a quiet psithurism whispers summer sweetness into my ears
turning itself into a surprise caesura that breaks the stormy sky’s unwelcome fermata
the wind tiptoes along my arms
and I shiver slightly as its invisible prints disappear
I prepare for nightfall–
overcome with the desire to dance barefoot
beneath the milky way
swaying to nature’s symphony with you
Two sides of the same damaged coin
The same sort of wrongness in our chemistry.
Listening to The Killers on car rides to Marion County
talking superheroes and TV shows.
Feel it all
NPR, get your hands dirty
Work to the bone
Increasingly patient
Increasingly stubborn.
Sacred conversations
had at the kitchen table
bringing ease
to my tormented soul.
We talk about the news,
local and world wide.
We talk about the weather
mapping out when it’ll next rain.
We talk about our lives
and I think about how fast they’re moving.
Talking and talking,
I close my eyes and listen,
soaking it in to keep
as a precious treasure
for when they enter
the final, sacred sleep.
A wild raving Robinhood sinks a hook into my amygdala’s heart once I
Spot a family, like a murder of silky crows soaring into view,
Smiling fervently at the cherry blossom field
genuinely joyful, Love incarnate, as their figures dance in the golden sunlight and the pre-pickled leaves
Well-adjusted and well-kempt without a pit-of-hell or a parasite in sight
I become a tall, grown child with tears larger than my own body
Setting off a 20-something-year-old sickening stirring inside me that will soon
Tear me up
And spit me out
before I am back up on my feet
let me become
something beyond
a variation
not new and improved
just rotated
altered by surroundings
original
resolute, open
unwaveringly me
I draw a scene on my canvas
of a model as I imagine her,
leaning back,
resting on her elbow
in tall grass.
I have drawn leaves hanging down
to the left of her head,
but the leaves are not held together
by stems but the way words
keep a poem from leaving
the page.
I have drawn eight oak leaves
on the right side above her head,
one partially hidden by her head.
I have not drawn trees.
It is said that da Vinci may have
utilized students to draw backgrounds
for his painting, perhaps the Mona Lisa.
My model will have green eyes,
and they might captivate some admirer.
Her hair will have the hint of a part,
hair blond and hanging straight.
Her nose and lips will be hard to convey
her thoughts, her feelings,
her age.
You will know that she is young
by her breasts.
I will make no apology for that.
Kitchen windowsills embrace collections
of all sorts, random in design,
pleasureable pieces of history.
Vintage saltshakers, scavanged cobalt blue Noxema jar,
dried sprigs of lavender and rosehips,
the carved horse from the old man in the hollow.
She never had an empty kitchen sill,
its own magnetic field,
collection of accidental treasures.
she packed the bags under her eyes
with all the things she used to be
she was taking them with her
no way she was leaving them behind
she put on the red, yes, red sweatpants
the ones that yeah, make her look fat, fat, fat
she was wearing them out the front door
but no way in hell was she wearing a bra
left everything that squeezed the life out of her
sitting on the gray couch in the living room
he didn’t get up
