Buried deep beneath the skin of mother nature's frame
I saw the back of someone else, a boy beside his name
But when I tried to touch his face he turned himself away
And then began to utter things he thought he couldn't say
In coughing up the cloud of smoke like dust inside his throat
The boy was finding clarity with every word he spoke
A subtle breeze upon his lips had driven out the fear
Of shedding all the strata that created his veneer

I am a bear inside the church of bees
There are people in here I am in love with

They are covered in bees
They tell me that the bees hurt

I am hungry
The pastor tells everyone it is god’s gift to them
This sting

I want to hold you like honey
I have been eating daffodils
There is sunshine in my belly always

I am not afraid of the bees

The buzzing is loud
If you listen carefully it is god sending you a message through white noise
Listening for it is futile
You are in pain

I begin to pluck the bees from the bodies
Of the people I am in love with

Though I try to be gentle
I hurt them still

There is honey and blood on their skin
I want to lick both

Pilot your mind out of the graveyard
all of your friends are alive:
you slurp on hearthstones, you forget to make tea
every cocktail at your funeral shall seem like a broken-
hearted woman. “She was once lovely
wrote verses about riding trains and breakfast.
She had the arms of an aircraft shattering its engine
she was killed after too long of a kiss.”

I would rather you poke holes in doughnuts than yourself
but this control-center flurries like a moth
and then stalls like a blood clot.

I would rather steer the plane home for you.

"Still water runs deep." - Yiddish Proverb*

To sail within a boat
never rocked or tucked within a sea.
Long grass kissing the bow.
Mosquito hum, siren stand-in.

Brother big, brother strong.
I, the groove of big brother's elbow.
Clothes on the line.
Canary yellow, A-line dress.
The spring girls swelling, rippling
from the bashful shore.

Big brother hold me over edge.
My arms, my oars.
Splashing pasture, blades receding.
Adults at birthday parties.

Brother big, brother mast.
Climb.
Not only sail, but zephyr, I.
Snake through Rusty Bike River,
the tributary.
Spill.
Into the wide, into the Harding Family Ocean.

Where dolls, hair frayed and faces smooshed,
lounge half-submerged and mostly forgotten.
Where sea dogs test chain, test spike.
Eye the confident chickens strolling dock.
And then Mother turns on porch lamp,
soft words, ebbing to lighthouse.

Brother big, big brother.
My arms, my arms.