I have luck in all the wrong places.
Right place at the wrong time,
I'm always early for everything.
My head, ten minutes fast,  
My heart, ten minutes slow,
so much for synchronization.
My soul gave up tracking time long ago
Anatomical or atomic.

They say it’s okay in the end.
But I can think of so many times
when it wasn’t.
Or maybe that’s what death says
when he takes your hand.
”It’s okay…”

Home alone.
I bake to distract myself from thinking too much.
I'm leaning away from a *** of bubbling oil,
trying to fry cake doughnuts
for my Great Grandmother,
The great cook of the family
who loved to make them back in South Dakota
for the guests in the little hotel she owned with my great grandfather.

We didn't have enough oil.
And the misshapen rings begin to burn.
I bat them, annoyed, with a spoon.
Somewhere, in such a mundane moment,
the sadness rises, unexpected.
I think of last summer.
And dissolve into tears.
I have never felt so alone.

I will miss Autumn here.
The crisp days of October, startling the remnants of summer
into hiding.
The homely smell of hearth burned pine and smoked meat
drifting from chimneys built
by long-dead grandfathers.
The battle fields will be beautiful.
Bathed in maples,
harmless blood of leaves, though the earth
still bears streaks
of death.
The grasses, drying, dying, in the cooling air
will whisper to the sojourners passing through,
seeking sites of ancestors
whose voices they never knew.
I will not be here
to slip the fallen leaves
between phone-book pages or
paste and sew them
to handmade paper.
My mother will stare at the tangled thread,
the blank sheets,
left untouched on my desk,
and ask my father
where the time went.

My hands hunger,
Tired of holding themselves.
Of aching emptiness,
that permeates the metacarpals, the cuticles, and
especially the palms, where lines lie in wait
for another artist to trace them.

Driving, late, the air is close, the wet contingent of molecules
Gathering across my cheeks, under my eyes.
A dog as white as the moon
Streaks across the road like a fallen star
Sirius descending to earthen night
caressed by a woolen fog, carded by sleepy winds.
The shattered carcass of a bird
crops up from the asphalt
I swerve, leaning against the inertia
the hare's heart spike of my own pulse.
There is a softness to the dark
these small scenes of ghostly death,
a solitude in the hem of night
That somehow feels safer
Than day’s garish glare.

The sigh of things gone,
echoes of hope and the
small prickles of a blackberry
as I turn it on my tongue
between knives of teeth.
I reach further into the bracken,
The tangle of thorns caressing, hooking themselves into my clothes,  
These are familiar pains,
Small scrapes of memory.
Petrichor, a reminder of our last walk
The clouds, tremendous waves breaking across the sky, coming storm
The plucked magnolia blossom wilting in my hand
How bitter it tasted on our tongues
I saw the berries, then, crimson unripe jewels
Vowed a Persephone return when they had turned onyx
And came back alone while you languished
In your underworld.

I can find sweetness amid the pain,
What have you found
To sustain  yourself ?

I miss the solace of your blue and citrine eyes
the anxious twist of the zephyrs in my core
Stilled near you,
Standing in cool shadows beneath an oak—
The heart tree your parents
Planted when you were born
still mewling as white coats pricked your tiny feet
The hunger they induced that never quite left you.
Still, under your branches
I was safe.

I remember the night
Lachesis plucked a few more inches
From her spool
And you wrapped them around your finger
Driven by ****** of dread
Drew me into your arms, clinging to the spaces between my hips and ribs
Whispering into the curve of my neck  
that if you released me into starlight  
Erebus would ****** me away from you.  
And I had not doubted that you loved me
But feeling your caged panic
I learned the wings of your heart were strong enough to bend mine.

In the dark I am more skittish now
Untangling our threads
I unraveled the Moirai’s veil.
Alone,
I am under the crimson eye of too many men
Now that I am not
The apple of yours.
The Graeae glance down from their mountain
Holding their eye above an abyss
Words I always wanted said are
poisoned by unwanted lips.
The restless zephyr in my stomach stirs
Searching the nearest escape route.
And the softer tint of the world
has turned hard again.

But you are still the nearest sanctuary
And maybe it is selfish
To think of you so
But I hope I am still the same
For you.

the amber drip of honey
crystalline memory
I eat
mouth watering
hungry for someone to undertake me
to seek between fern frond and yarrow
for my magic, spilled and spent
in the places I no longer fill
to return singing the song
I lost to wind and rain
a traveller's lips
tasting of honey
and promise

Two birds in similar cages bound,
with bleached white staves
a brig of flesh.
The lock unreachable,
as with any prisoner,
but it keeps them not from calling,
to their opposite companion.

The Jailers hear the songs,
block them out,
try to stifle the warbling beaks,
but they know there will be no peace
till the bleached white staves are joined,
and the two birds may nest together.

There is something divine, of light through clouds,
in that cantabile,
the plaintive, golden chords, minor falls,
radiating from the deepest recess of the soul
a tugging lilt of melody.
To think these might be the lowest harmonies of heaven
the simplest of notes in Gabriel's voice
the sweetest, must be so,
It is a wonder
the heart does not break with beauty.

I have learnt the pain
of too much tenderness,
of ingratitude, of impatience.
The pain that comes when you can't identify
the material of the casket,
you kept a gifted heart in.
I though it was love,
that preserved your misshapen, scarred *****.
But was it sympathy, inlaid with gratitude,
For three words uttered (though falsely)?
But I returned yours unharmed, when you requested it.
No gashes from harsh words
only salve, from caring hands- though the wound's wouldn't heal.

I don't know what you kept my heart in.
A bag of lust, tied with pride?
Cheaply made, so when it tore,
you sent my heart back, raw, unprotected.
At least I left you with sympathy.

Her smile stands like a porcelain lock,
lips closed like the red doors
to the Forbidden city.
Those blood-washed memories
will never dry in closed rooms.
Rust grows under her fingernails
smelling of iron and salt,
destroying the magic.
Her mixed drinks, peroxide and pain killers,
sleeping pills
stand on the nightstand,
after her one night stands,
leave the door standing open.
The cat knocked the glass over,
stained the carpet.
She locks the door again,
blotting the stain with her hair,
she chokes on the dust.
Swallows down the myrrh
to make her breath sweet,
wash the blood from her teeth.
The plastic wrap party dress
clings to the bruises,
and she paints it black with old mascara stains
and phone bills,
taping the pieces of herself together
with promises of old lovers.
The door opens
The lips lock,
porcelain smile.

Child of earth,
With your muddied hands,
Half-moon fingernails black with soot,
From digging in the ashes
Of your forgotten playground.

Child of earth,
With your star-crossed eyes,  
Deep as sorrow, black and blue,
Look out to silver spires,
Sparkling in the midday sun.

Child of earth,
With your weathered feet
Armored in calluses, black from tar
Stumbling along familiar ground,
One with the rocks and soil.

Child of earth
With your sun-scorched skin
Darker than leather, black as midnight
As tight as a newly made drum
Holding your soul in tight embrace.

The wise blood pulsed within her veins
First the sixth sense and then the seventh
Her mind was sick of self taught lessons
The clock struck the tenth hour, and then the eleventh.

Her eyes saw colors their’s could not
But names had she not for their description
The tint of wind and the hue of water
They thought it her dumb and idiot invention.

She heard noise when they were deaf
But she could not record or imitate the sound
The music of stones and the language of trees
They would not listen, for they spoke too loud.

She felt what they were too calloused too feel
But she could not weigh or measure the touch
The texture of thought and the surface of dreams
They said it was madness and dismissed it as such.

She smelled the fragrances they could not smell
But she had no perfume or cologne to match
The stench of pain and the scent of hope
They called her foolish, said her mind had been snatched.

Her tounge tasted tastes that theirs could not
But no herb could she find to imitate the flavors
The spice of music and the tang of peace
They said it was merely her tears she savored.

Her heart had taught her everything
Her mind to see, her nerves to feel
She’d wished for a prophet, a teacher, a sage
To show her that all that she knew was real.

But no philosopher would second her claim
No scientist back her with reasearch and facts
Her teachers all mocked her, laughed in her face
And so she fell silent to cease their attacks.

Her newfound knowledge boiled within
Bombarded, her mind was over wrought
She sank into despair with hardening heart
Lost without a soul with which to share her thought

As the clock struck the twelfth with a deafening clang
She stepped to the ledge and looked to the sky
A last sigh to the world, she drew a deep breath
And in silence the seven-sensed girl leapt to die.

Sing in the greyness, the darkness.
Twine it round your fingers
round the staff lines
you carved into your legs.
Black white and red
what have we anymore?
Dame Misfortune Madam
of whorish time,
who waits for no man.
Which came first?
See who lit the cigarette last,
see, he puts his trousers on
one at a time.
Eternity in a nutshell,
the universe in an eggshell,
and we brewed beer in them
to get rid of the changeling thoughts,
though mother heated the shovel
iron hot, it glowed
black white and red.
Flicker, dance-- does it live?
Do we live?
Even when we can see the end?
Blindfolded fortune, justice,
says no,
twisting ribbons round her fingers
black, white and red.

We hovered in wounded silence
our briefly exchanged words drifting
around our ears
whispering themselves over and over
in our minds,
and even when the whispers faded,
the furrows they dug in our brains remained.
As our arms unlocked,
arms that had melded over such a short time
But still found release a struggle
And when their bond had broken,
we walked away, shattered.
The last remnants of ‘us’
being swept away by rivulets of rain,
that ran down our faces.

I
The Boy
A child of broken whiskey bottles
and stained old carpet
built hastily, with scraps of stolen innocence
Porcelain in overalls,
with full harvest moon eyes.

II
Father
He had distant star eyes,
always looking for things far away
and when he found them,
doused them in *****
and set them ablaze, watching as they burned
in his saw mill hands.

III
Aunt
She was a war of a woman.
Embraced him with her entrenching arms,
a cloud of mustard gas perfume
rising from her breastworks,
into her flaming hair.

IV
Mother
Mother was a whispered name in grey stone,
a grey photograph on the brown mantel,
with perfect skin and dull eyes,
he'd seen her ghost at the piano one night.

V
Uncle
He had ****** hands
that he shoved into his pockets
when he put his cleaver down for the night.
He always offered crimson quarters
that bought red striped candies.

I still recall the small, delicate, boy
on the ferry to Ellis Island,
With the large dove grey eyes
I'd never seen eyes so deep.
A girl will love you for those, someday
I told him telepathically.

Up top, where the wind blew,
The steel sky greeted us, in cool Manhattan fashion.
I watched a couple lean on the lattice railing.
They reminded me of  John and Yoko.
He looked like a boy--giddy with finding
a beautiful thing in his hands,
but unsure of how to handle it.
She had him gently wrapped around her finger,
tightening the knot with every smile.

I studied two old Orthodox Jews
beards streaked with fading black, faces wrinkled,
framed by the two thick curls
and staunch black hats.
I wondered what they thought of us,
teens in our jeans, disheveled from travel,
Or if they saw us at all.

I wonder if any remember me
the way I remember them.
Probably not.
No one takes notice
of the skinny red-head in the corner.

On the overpass
a man throws his arms up
In crucifixion grace  
His expression is wandering between
Elation and desecration
Face ****** to the late afternoon sun
Belly pressed to the rail like the bow of a ship

My stomach curdling
I pass beneath him
Panicked, I check the rear view for swerving cars and relieved,
find none.
At home the 911 call list shows nothing
On that stretch of road.

I hope he was only greeting the autumn
An icarus whose wings
Never melted.

Here is another lost soul on campaign.
Hardened veteran of dark words,
fighting to retain the beachhead of sanity, so narrowly won.
Tell them to hang a black banner
for the mind missing in action.
Tell them not to hold their breath,
Waiting for a homecoming .
It will die on foreign, but familiar soil.
So it is with poets.
We few. We happy few.

Come away O human child
to the waters and the wild
with a faerie hand in hand
for the world's more full of weeping
than you can understand.

Bridget,
Your pretty face,
was all they found in the peat
with the hoarfrost over your mouth
and your burnt skin curled in ribbons.
This, and your black stockings
he couldn't bear to remove.

Bridget,
Did you see the wildness in his eyes
that night he brought the priest
for last rites?
Did his hands shake
as he mixed the herbs with *****
and threw them in your face,
telling you to come home?

Bridget,
was he jealous of the sixpence in your apron pocket
the pieces of you he could never own
and the independent streak
that ran through your sensuous hair.
The hot iron at your throat
the only jewel he cared to hold there,
the slow smoke rising like a chain
'round your neck.

Bridget,
did you stare at the frightening faerie child,
his changeling wings beating above you
as he called you by his own name.
Did you scold him in the name of his aos si mother
to watch his strange eyes flare
as you choked on the dry bread
he'd jammed down your throat.
You were never his Bridget
you were your own.

Bridget,
You were never the last witch.
We are still hunted
across deserts and into alleys
acid and fists destroy the magic
of our bewitching eyes.
Angry, they reach for the pieces of us they can never own
and burn our hearts on hearths
across continents.
The smoke rising from so many fires,
unnoticed.

The scratch at the back of my throat
will not go away.
It aches, burns,
In the same way my chest aches,
my eyes burn.
I miss you.
I know we can call, I can hear your voice
on the other end of the phone line,
tired, gentle, soft, but still distant.
As though it were a thousand miles
instead of a hundred.
Our words are muted, conversations short.
Full of "I love you"s, "Please don't worry"s, and (I'm afraid overly) hopeful "I'll see you soon"s.
But somehow, the voice doesn't seems like yours.
I've always equated your voice with your touch, I suppose.
It's strange for them to be separated.
I expect your chest against my back, your hand to caress mine.
But it's still that little light- the tiny candle we hold for each other.
The candle of hope. Lit with the flame of love.

I will forget you.

Well, I can't really,
first loves can't be forgotten,
and my memory is too good for that.

Besides, I will be writing your name
on cheap website security questions
for the rest of my life.
Who was your first kiss?

I can't forget,
but I may curse
The folly of a a gentle, blind, ******, heart,
who fell for a wounded one.

In truth, I'm angry,
at myself, and you,
my heart's dying embers glow red,
I always treated you with tenderness.

I'll clean my wound, let it drain,
let it heal.
But if you want to let yours fester,
there's nothing I can do to stop you.

I've a bad habit.
Of bringing up the bodies
of memories, to make sure they're still in their graves.
Thought I've marked them well.
They rest comfortably in the deep furrows
carved in my brain
by wind and water and whispered words.
Eventually I'll let them rest in peace
When fresh new furrows have been dug,
and I'll plant forget-me-nots
before the tombstones
time himself has carved.

This is a poem for the anger
I keep coiled around my ribs
Because I was taught that anger is an absinthian poison
That will rise like bile in the throat and must be swallowed.
And I realize you may read this
And you may be angry
But I realize with each crunch of bone
I must give myself the space
To uncoil in this way.

I am angry
That you made me a captive reservoir
for the bitter droughts you refused to drink yourself.
You were iron-stomached after years of punches,
that I understood.
Open handed, I wanted to be the exception
But holy palmer’s kiss
Was still not enough to let me cross the threshold.
You are the locked room in the house that the children are forbidden
Only small glimpses between hinges
Of your fear poisoned self
Huddled in a corner, vomiting apologies.

I am angry
for believing I could have lain beside you
every night for the rest of my life
And not starved to death from loneliness.

I am angry
for ignoring how I dimmed each time I waited for you
to want me, to miss me, to think of me,
to ask me to come into your arms,
to find me fascinating, enchanting
to tell me you needed me;
to betray anything that proved I was more than convenience,
A drink that served itself on a silver platter,
Asking to be drunk.
If you only knew how luminous I could be
when loved well.


I am angry
That I still hope you will be waiting by my door after work
because you realized how you starved me
And now you’ve set a banqueting table, a banner over me is love
But I know you will never do this.
I know you cannot do this.
I am angry
that I miss only the space you left,
That I have not yet been able to close the gap
And walk away from your memory.

I am guilty of the sin of luck.
Serendipitously born into wholeness.
My head was filled with stars,
the sun placed in my hands.
And I never wanted more.
Who decreed me the fortunate one?
What stroke of fate, what hand of God?
I am grateful.
but why should I be whole
when so many others are broken?

Things always seem to wind up, then crash,
Like the tops we spun as children
Winding, winding, winding,
Till it circled it’s dizzying path across the dining room table
Reflected in the polished walnut.
Then plummeting over the edge
Into oblivion.

The happy, ignorant, whirling top,
Not knowing its misfortune
Until it meets the floor.
And rolls, rolls, rolls,
In gravity's death throes.

Men have worn me like a talisman
braided my hair with their wants, twined it round their fingers
Kissed me for luck, whispered spells against my cheek
Slipped pieces of me into their pockets
later forgotten in the washing.
Like so many charms,
held me until I slipped from their hands,
into sand, into straw, into grass,
their hazel wands useless
as I watch from yarrow-stained eyes,
how gracefully
they let go
of things not meant for them.

Your eyes are of the ember kind
that sear their light into memory and thought.
They glow and warm, like sun bathed quartz,
Brighter still when our hands meet,
across the canyon of air between our bodies.

As sun-starved leaves in early spring,
my hands reach for the source of light,
like birds, nest on your shoulders,
basking in the warmth of your being.

And I am enveloped in such bliss
My heart has never fathomed
such depths, as those I find
within your eyes.

I still wonder at the beauty of my sister
and the flocks she will draw at 16
piles of phone numbers at her feet,
Psyche incarnate, I the strange sibling
no servant of cinders, she is exalted.
Not that I am unloved, but it is strange to see
how much the contrast shows in family portraits.

Youth, my beautiful lie
Forever weaving falsehood’s web
Adding more threads as the years slip by
To cover the frays
Begun by Time
For the work is too delicate to patch.

Death, my painful truth,
You watch my futile fiction grow
Waiting till you can cut
The tapestry from the loom
Your scythe sharpened,
Waiting,
To bring me into veracity.

The letters I'll never send, dear
that shall never reach your hand,
but sit hidden within my mind
unwritten, unknown, and unread.

The words I'll never say, dear
that shall never reach your ear
but stay locked behind my lips
unheard, unknown, and unsaid.

The things I'll never do, dear
that shall never be recalled
but stay beneath a cloak of fear
unimagined, unknown, and undone.

The letters I'll never send, dear
the words I'll never say,
the things I'll never do, dear
because with you, I could not stay.

Leaving me is how you stayed
tragedy and memory work the same
they spin the lead back into gold
your lips they were my alchemist's stone

But you're still standing in my head
more perfect than the day you left
I blurred the scars and darker days
it all looks perfect from far away

Chorus: I fell in love with a memory
With something that you'll never be
It's funny what the mind can make
and leaving me has made you stay.

All is fair in love and war
Though time is still their only cure
Forgotten tales of a thousand lives
All men live and all men die

You left your heart and ghost behind
and your words burn in my mind
you're probably gone a world away
but leaving me is how you stayed.

Chorus: I fell in love with a memory
With something that you'll never be
It's funny what the mind can make
and leaving me has made you stay.

My dreams are growing darker-
maybe it’s the weather
but my bed is growing colder
despite the extra sheets.

I dream of wars I’ve never been in
And men I’ve never seen,
dust rises all around me
in the distance drunken screams.

And the barren cold is creeping,
seeping deep into my bones
I feel the marrow freezing
will take years to thaw the frost

Where has all the color gone?
All fading grey, no black and white,
I’m tumbling down the rabbit hole;    
at least three dreams a night.

*And the barren cold is creeping,
seeping deep into my bones
I feel the marrow freezing
will take years to thaw the frost

If I am only ever a poem to you, I will be satisfied. A poem you heard someone read once, but you can’t remember the title, and only a few lines stick out. Snatches of speech still hang in a dusty closet of memory. Aired out by similar voices, phrases, overheard on the subway or at the supermarket. Somewhere in song lyrics you find a line, half a line, speak it softly to yourself. You may be aware of how your tongue bends to the words, notice how it brushes the roof of your mouth, and feel the edges of your lips come together— you might not.

It will not be constant. I will not be the belabored sonnet, the endless chant, the mantra you repeat day after day. I will be the fleeting thought, epiphany of memory, the light ache of a barely recalled past. Easily lost, in life, in noise, lost in the millions of words and notes swimming in your brain, fallen between synapses and currents. Half remembered, half lost— eternally. The half life reminder of a woman, a girl, in love with language, and lost in thought.

If I am never anything but a poem to you, I am satisfied.

I still remember how his dogtags felt around my neck.
They hung over my sternum, armor for the heart beneath.
Stamped-steel identity resting between my *******,
Name/SSN/USMC/O-POS/Christian
a piece of his soul, almost,
the soldier's lover's rosary.
I said more prayers than there were silver beads.
I'm still saying them.

In the night
Memories drift like the hair of a drowned man
The waves a callous lullaby
curling around the body of his sleeping wife
the unburdened curve of her hip against the moonlight
The drift of her breath in the dark
Coursing to match the sea wind
That sings across the lake’s dark mirror.
Her black hair spills across his hands
Ensnared, he pulls her in
To the harbor of his great shoulders—
It is the same
As it was on their first night
she is warm, small,
still smelling of the almond blossoms
she gathered in twilight.
But tonight, his impetuous heart is awake
Moving between the woman in his arms
And the messiah in the next room
the love he bears both
At once consuming
And unbinding,
his heart a stone
On which they both
rest.

My mind is an unquiet graveyard;
uninterred mistakes stare up from their open barrows
Milk eyes clearing to glass
As the anxious banshee crosses over them
keening notes drifting
linen strands of her raiment twining around their wrists
Dragging sloughed skin into the murky light
Of repeated examination.

I could be a queen of solitude
if not for this.
If Pandora's voice box were broken
hinges rent, screws loosed from their cavities, wood split
the demons might still, displaced.
Hope is not the last thing in my throat
she was the first to go
with a song unsung
an alto never strong enough to last
beyond the first few flakes of oxygen
I inhale in the morning.

The world lost a beautiful soul today. But the beautiful thing about poets is that they never really die. Their secrets, their hopes, their most intimate thoughts are tucked between the lines, even in their most light hearted pieces. Poetry is a very honest medium. Maybe not as honest as sitting and having conversation over tea, but scraps of living soul are always left in the spaces between letters. David, Ovid, Homer, Shakespeare, all of these have survived the centuries as poets. I have no doubt that centuries from now, if our world is still turning, Maya Angelou's works will be counted among these eternal ranks.

I am letting them go today, all the "what if's".
Letting them slide away, chasing some out
I banish their offspring of Paltry Wishes with them.
Sending the whole lot into the Siberia of Reality and Pessimism,
Along with false hope and innumerable maybes.

They try to come back, persistent things.
Beat upon the door, knocking, crying, begging,
to be let back in.

But I slide the dead bolt and turn away.
They bring only pain, real and projected.
At least I had some pleasure before, I think.
But it doesn't make it hurt any less.

One day I will find the words
One day
But not today.

Today the words scamper from outstretched hands
I, clawing for one syllable, one sound
as they melt into the camouflage of boredom
Unreachable.

One day I will find the words
pluck them from the branches of my mind
gather them into the basket of a pen
and take them home,
lay them out to dry on a blank page.

I will paste them down,
thought by thought
verse by verse, dactyl, measure, line,
Till they've made a sentence
a phrase, a page.

One day, I will find the words
they will be simple, beautiful, soft
as I take their dry hulls,
and line them up in ranks
on the field of an unwritten page.

One day I will find the words,
but it is not today.

'Today, I should be happy.'
I told Myself, as Myself and I
stared into Our mirror of thoughts
contemplating the day's ensemble.

'There are too many sad things here,'
said Myself. 'We've worn black every day this week.'
But I paused, and smoothed the wrinkled raven skirt
across Our knees.
'But it's grey today' protested I,
'and red makes Us look garish.'

'No one said We had to be all happy,' Myself mused,
'We'll wear the red scarf with the black coat,
a little happy, but not so much as to drown out the sad.'
I nodded. 'A little sad never hurt anyone.'

I can only say I miss you in so many ways.
My syllables plunge like suicides
Into the space between us
the cold glaze of your wine-dark eyes
unmoved.

In my memory, they are still bright
Peeking around the old oak as we played tag like children
The scrape of bark across arms
The warm press of your waist in my hands
the sweet brightness of lemon and gardenia cascading from your hair.  
Now when I reach for you
There is only the chasm of cool air
across our bed, the rise of your shoulder
the fractured points of ambient light
illuminating the Cassiopeia constellation of beauty marks  
At the nape of your neck
I once kissed every night.
My lips still remember the feather touches of your hair,
The heat of your back against the curled sanctuary of my chest.
But now we are empty cloisters,
And when I hold my dreams before you
Like pairs of polished dimes
You tell me they,
and I
mean nothing.

You drive one, pink-nailed finger through the cavity of my loneliness
relishing in the slow soft flesh
That will always bend to you
Even when you turn away.
I am the sea
limbs bruised black
From the slamming of waves on levee
And I want nothing more
Than to flood you.

I am tired
Of reminding you that I miss him, too.
That every day
I feel his phantom weight in my arms
Wake in the night
To a changeling’s cry.
And I know it is the grief-bored holes
That drive us into cavernous waste,
Poison the well between us.
I see the wine bottles
You hide behind the washer,
the way you only clean his room when drunk,
Stumbling, teary-eyed, the way you always hit the mobile
When dusting the crib,
and its twinkling notes
Collapse around you.

I can only say I love you
In so many ways,
The folded laundry, sunflowers,
The lingering gaze on your still effortless grace, whispered “you’re beautifuls” across the night,
The favorite candy bar I find uneaten in the trash.  

Can you hear
The scraping rift of each fissure
Running down my back
The spidered cracks
You only drive wider—
Are you only waiting
For the shatter?

I botched my reconstruction.
The arches of my cathedrals lie unfinished, burned bone.
You can see strait through my ribs into the living room-- one breast gone.
War is never civil
and its aftermath, never logical.
Reluctant combat of minds and hearts,
my body aches for you,
my conquered heart
reaching blindly for your familiar arms,
to find nothing but air.

He stood
chest bared before the mirror
studying
searching
trying to find the heart
that lay within
if there even was one.

He sighed
ran a hand through tousled hair
Wondering
mourning
why he could not see
the heart within
If there even was one.

He sat
on the edge of the bed
sinking
drowning
in his quest and the blankets
He thought he’d lost the heart
if there even was one.

He sank
farther into his despair
wishing
longing
that he had begun his search
A long time ago for the heart
If there even was one.

He slumped
body contorted and limp
feeling
thinking
that he was merely a body
a shell without a heart
he doubted there ever was one.

Carve out the marrow in my bones
and plant a flower there.
Split my ribs for fence posts,
empty my skull for a watering can.
Use my hands for trowels,
plunge them into the earth.
I shall be pushing daisies
come the first sign of spring.

The night was moist
the sea-winds blew salt
to the trembling lips
which formed half words
and quiet whispers.
The air tasted of memory
and long lost souls.
"What keeps you alive?"
the mad girl asked the sea.
"Or are you dead and still moving?
My father killed a snake.
and it's body moved like waves,
though he held its head in his hand.
It twitched. It twitched," she muttered.
Her laugh broke across the water,
the gulls shuddered, clouds gathering,
and the waves resounded to the hidden stars.
She screamed to the wind as it snagged her hair,
it screamed back
over the breakers.
She laughed
and laughed
and laughed
again.

She was tired
of pretending
she didn't go to bed
alone.