Nine years and still
we cradle our grief
carefully close,
like groceries
in paper bags.

Eventually the milk
will make its way
into the refrigerator;
the canned goods
will find their home
on pantry shelves.

Most things find
their proper place.

Eventually the hummingbirds
will ricochet against scorched air,
their delicate beaks stabbing
like needles into the feeder filled
with red nectar on the back porch.

Eventually our child
will make her way
back to us. Perhaps.

But I’ve heard
that shooting
****** feels
like being
buried under
an avalanche
of cotton *****.

For now it’s another
week, another month,
another trip to Safeway.

We drive home and wonder
why it is always snowing.
Behind a curtain of snow,
brake lights pulse, turning
the color of cotton candy,
dissolving into ghosts.

And with each turn,
the groceries shift
in the seat behind us.
From the spot where
our daughter used to sit,
there is a rustling sound—

a murmur of words
crossed off yet another list,
a language we’ve budgeted
for but cannot afford to hear.

One fleeting chance to catch you between trapezes
Yet my head was bowed, my thoughts immersed
In another dream of another life that i longed to live
A moments lapse careers you to that downward spiral
Through all those safety nets, all those webs we wove
Once so secure borne from our labour, love and toil
Exposed now like a promise of night through a civil dawn
As you fall through each of my declarations of trust
You blow out the candles and knock out the lights
Of celebrations and occasions now shattered like glass

Blackness descending through this never blinking eye
As those moments and time perpetually relive yet resist
The blood still refusing to flow freely through my veins
As i sit and wait for this evening coffee to run cold
That i may embrace the sanctuary of night once more
For I was one that could never dream in the dark
No more than one who could ever make amends
Between those two trapezes that signaled our end

To my friends
who can write
fresh-smelling
bouquets of words
with splendid color,
I offer my envy.
Mine are the blunt, stunted words,
rooted in the cracks
in pavement,
or forcing their way
to light around
overbearing rocks.
Some useful
in their own way,
edible or flavorful,
some with a
pedestrian beauty,
but few that one
would bring home in a bunch
with a box of candy.
More appropriate
in a grimy, young fist
crumpled in love,
destined to be vased
in a water glass
by a doting mother,
or shredded petal by petal
for the sake of soothsaying...
he loves me, he loves me not.

whispers of sea
where the cold storm
gathers in the grey
sky, and the waves
pound the shore
running back
pushing down
arching like
fiery cats,
the ache of the storm
a tearful cloud
the song of
a poem.

some believe in the deity
others in the sanctity of self
I think poetry is a religion
a soul unto itself
not a god
but close
and I seek her his its
calming words
wisdom
to get on my knees
and worship
every night
alone
here
in my sanctuary
like any
true believer

There are some who may prefer a cloudless sky and the touch of a warm sun. These hearts are similar climates, and you may find them at no great distance from the equator.

Not mine.

My love is for the sedge and moss covered upland of frozen lakes, where the cold white blanket covers the steppes. Peace is found here, among the ice and whispered within the biting gale as it travels over her skin.

Her chill breath touches me, and I am not driven away.
For within my chest beats a fire as black as space between the stars.

And I go unclothed, as the caribou carry me across the frozen land.

I am the horned god.

Tree, I have come to shelter and with the rain to weep
I am soaked, barefoot with mud running through.
Soft the moss, cool and cold
to soothe my heart that bleeds.
Our waxing nights of love and moons
now fallow, a field that burns.
****** our hollow bed
of haunting, silent screams
too soon the fiery devil
too far my lover
the spring.