For the most part,
quiet surrounds us:
there’s the stream,
the occasional creak
of the wooden bridge,
the rustle of pages,
but we are still,
& the world is wonderous

There’s a time & a place
for everything:
every bruise
every cut
every kiss—-
sometimes brief
sometimes eternal
& sometimes it’s okay either way

I have never been bereft of desire,
but for a moment,
it would be okay either way:
ending in searing pain
(the course I’m most familiar with, even with you),
although I’d love this to last forever
& you say,
“likewise”

her throat draws back     w     i     d    e 
opens        trapped inside         the     
                                                            ghost
of her baby      w e e p s 
through blood hands & softend tissue
wants to feed             on the life she 
never             got                                     
                        she’s mine
all mine                    i’ll wear her 
deadened flesh             a makeshift blanket
to keep me warm            mama        her 
hands                the bones            rattle 
like ours 

– my mistake,
regretted hours
of sticky pitch
on fingers.

Let’s go dip our hands in the creek
just to touch the water.
Maybe our toes too.

Cover our skin in crystal cool
pressed up against this heat.
A good kind of sharp,

quick and to the bone.
The kind that feels
refreshing on the other side

standing in sun to drip dry,
rocks stuck on the edges of our feet
sparkles shining, dancing down ripples.

A response to “Mountain Preachers Walking the Path of the Sacred” https://lexpomo.com/poem/mountain-preachers-walking-the-path-of-the-sacred/

I have struggled with the sense
of Appalachian pride
in things that have brought us low.

We can all agree-
the mountains are beautiful,
the creek should run clear.

Gritty and complicated,
our lives can fall to despair
or soar in our lofty joy.

Coal, tobacco, corn liquor,
ignorance and prejudice,
children that fend for themselves.

Cold sweet well water,
and steaming cat head biscuits,
homemade berry jam.

Sitting around the back porch,
radio crackling a tune,
snapping a mess of green beans.

There is culture here –
wisdom and mysticism,
a verse to stop blood.

Strength, passion and stubbornness
are mountain traits we all share-
let’s move forward together.

Always listening 
He is ninety two years old 
My loving father. 

6/15/24
KW

I posed in front of your grave like a tourist, got sticky rolling on your kitchen floor when no one could see. When I held your words in my mouth and they praised me, was it for my work or yours? So many times I fell through the mirror held to nature, no longer could I taste the difference between sense and nonsense. Still crawling, a baby, on the floor of your centuries cold kitchen, four hundred years from its last warm hearth, whose life was I living? Better yet, who was I trying to fool?

The color of
warm happy thoughts
flower smiles
campfire glow
candlelight
lightning bugs

yet will not wear
makes me sallow

Reinvention is a form of avoidance;

 I overheard in a discussion

I clumsily navigate the divide between fun and self destruction

the rain in the sunshine made me feel more reluctant 

I thought I’d met myself but needed a reintroduction