i would have
withered away
the way insects
do at the bottom
of a local water tank

an old stray dog
panting between
street signs in the
boonies,

I have never fully
feared obscurity
but I would if I
slept like the dead
and found comfort
beneath a neon moon.

the window
always needs
to be opened.

even the air
needs room to
move and billow

like white noise
i  need to be reminded
to breathe, or keep driving

to will, to forgive
to let things hurt a little
and then move along
not think too much
about the way things were

the windows
always need to
be open, one
arm out, with a
good song to fill
you up, remind
you to breathe--
like the air,
in and out
in and out

out

out.

people only know quarters of the story

a retelling, the abridged
condensed, shortened,
can you truncate the
things that have not
ended or strip it of
it's beginning--can you
choose between one or the
other?

the novels exist in our
backgrounds, in the attics
we wrote and wrote to say
we did but only to store them
away when we found we could
not erase people the way we hoped--

I have learned that there is no getting rid
or escaping a place, not unless you have
fully healed, and it's not enough just to say
you have, to be able to go and be, do and feel
without the tangled strings of your past
curling behind you--

but luckily i believe
in such a
life.

who laughs when
the suns hits her
face and breathes
good morning
into every waking
moment because
every moment is
w a k i n g -- calls every
d o u b l e - y o l k  e g g
a sweet baby and wants
to move the living room
rug just so she can dance.

most of these things
still feel pretty empty--
Miss Rebecca prayed
for me today, got all
misty-eyed when I
started to get choked
up, sweet-girlin me
and letting me play
with her grandson's
hair, he's so soft
and new like
babies are, with
them big watery
eyes the color
of pond algae
so little and
alive, and I
sorta don't
hear what
she's asking
God, i'm too
busy rubbing
his back--
thinking about
all the parts of
me i'm gettin'
back, and every
time I turn around
and go home instead
of runnin' his way.

is it really like that?
I wonder, him not
sayin' a thing and
ignoring you after
he gets off,  i still
hurt about that
about bein' looked
through and through
like I wasn't even there
but lord if that's the
last thing on his mind
anymore, a silly girl
silly, silly
girl.

drive miles out
open up, find a
spot you never were
you owe no one an
explanation for
screaming or crying
admit to all the things
you did and go,
show up and expect
nothing, you don't need
roots, that is why you have
hands, nimble and ever busy
always searching, you don't
need roots, your fingers
have always done a fine
job of digging in so
drive miles out
open up, find a
spot you never were
the newest things are
always scary and
you are infinitely
cautious but despite
the ticks in your surface
are so worthy of good
things.