My pen has no eraser
its end inks over my soft skin
etching errors over the places I've been
inscribing the essence of the sins I've sinned
My poems saved me
like tattoos that allow me to
explode poetry into the external
to be remade, remodeled
like a sprinkle of ink syllables
creative release in the form of an ink fit.
I'd leave it if I could, I'd want to and I would.
But simply I can't stand and that's the stance I’ll take.
And its how I get by day after day .
my poems save me.

Native American necklaces, doing a dance on that neck of his
The wolf and the eagle entwining in lovely loyal leather bindings
The eagle with clay in his claws like prayer he won’t let go of
Empty air in the teeth of the wolf but his hope to be filled feels enough
Scars raked through your lion’s pride but hidden by your mane
You’ve got Native American necklaces that look like mine but I don’t even know your name
Absorbed in tribal metaphor, enthralled by nature’s sound
Bowed with face and hands and knees to dirt, but your roots aren’t in the ground
I see you beg to understand, I see you beg for touch
And leaves reach out and jump from trees, it’s enough but it isn’t much
They brush your skin like the fingers of a long lost lover
One you remember from a time before you were born from your mother
And you, You beg for more and bathe in a waterfall
as with the water cracking on the cliffs
you see your heart beat apart, reminding you of the gift
the name you were given, written
on a white rock,  living
inside you from the beginning, spinning your head
as you realize you are
alive
and it’s written across your spine in indelible ink
and every step you walk is another breath that you take
grinding it deeper into the bones in your back

the wolf isn’t always white and black
his fur tends to be gray
but the eagle
is two
colors
On the day he falls and the day he flies away