one night of sleep
one day for awake

imagination spins her webs
weaves days and nights

one night for a star
one day for Sun

on this a mind rests
a heart beats.

Quiet Astonishment,
A breath held—
not for fear,
but for the miracle
of feeling a leaf unfold
beneath the ribs.
No pain.
Only the hush
of something ancient
remembering how to grow.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

I was starving in
Pennsylvania.
One night, I had
enough.
Done with it all.
The poverty and
sickness.
The drunken mad
nights
and dog-fight days.
Brutality for breakfast.
Served sunny side up
runny yolks with
butterflies trapped in
the yellow sunshine.
Spiders built webs in
my soul.

I stood on the torn-up
couch in my living room and
yelled at the walls.

Listen, you devil.
You want me, you better be
ready for a fight.
I paced the floor like a
washed-up heavyweight champ,
eyeing the ceiling like a
drunken sparrow in a cat's mouth.

Before sleep I knot a cardboard tag
to my big toe with baling twine.
Sometimes I think of stapling it -
ritual wants a clean edge.

She tolerates my oddities:
a posterboard of errands above the sink,
tea mug with its brown ring I refuse to clean,
I stand too close when the train arrives,
or climb ladders with one hand full.

Last summer a rogue wave flung me under;
I surfaced broken, collarbone split,
came home wrapped and aching.
She kissed the bruise and laughed,
as if I’d slipped the ocean’s grip,
as if the sea had lost its claim.

I call them accidents to sleep easier,
yet I flood the stove with gas,
strike a match, laugh at the plume,
convinced the fire means I’m alive
even as it scorches my hand.

At night she circles the bed,
tugging at my toe tag
as if it could bind me to her,
carrying me into the cabin,
a weight she won’t release.

The world is the same

for you and for me—

What we see

depends on

where we stand.

he introduces himself
saying quiet, but slipping in, firm:

“something he knows for sure,
no is no”

I, (19, f)

replying, smiling
saying louder, firmer:

“something she knows for sure,
yes is yes”

and he says

“yes, ma’am,”

returning her smile, so shyly,
while blushing, so loudly,
thinking he said something dumb,
looking down at his shuffling feet,
covered in worn out cowboy boots

I like this guy
I like this man.