Give it time
Release blooms in the heart
While you water the cracked soil
In the flowerpots
You’ve neglected all summer

While you rest in clean sheets
And collect poems and pebbles
That will grow paler
Atop the commode
And worn-down shelves

You may fear
You’ll rip apart at the seams
Feel your arms and legs detach
From the dull centre
Adding ruin to remorse

Be patient

Right now
A parched cactus
Draws fresh green
From the rain you provide
Never more a cactus
Than it is
Right now
The ocean leaves
Fresh foam on the sand
And takes back
Seaweed and debris
Sowing a new mantle of waves
Every time it moves
Right now
Life echoes
Across the cliffside beach
Sounding like seagulls
And water
Repeating its name
Over and over
So that the rocks will listen
So that you too can listen
To its pounding
In your pulse
And in your temples
Forcing out the roots
Of something so old
It can never die

Today, today
So round, smooth, the clean-shaven weather
Lifting the weight off my stride
Untangling my bones as I march
Up the cobblestone street which I love
The rhythm so tight like a tune
The song that crinkles my nose
The very edge of laughter
A rose is a rose and I still know happiness
When I see it
I’m still able to scrape
Both knees to converse with the ants
Who inhabit the cracks in the pavement
Who do not know beyond what is knowable now
And what is knowable now is all there is to know
So the ants know everything.

The significance of consonants in my soles
As they crush gravel and dirt eludes me
My tongue is busy shaping words against
The soft palate, perfecting them for later
When we meet and I am caught off guard
By the storm of vowels and silent letters
We communicate with, as though just
Tuning into speech after a long period of static
Words are the low-hanging fruit, so
We grab at them despite the hard shell
Knowing we can never get to the soft flesh
Of ideas as they are before we tear them
With our teeth