Skin soaks in sting until the burning subsides
into numbness.
You are king;
                               I’m a furnace.


Fallen thing, how you broke just a small
little piece of your wing
in the jump
from the bird’s nest.

Her birthday cards

All lined up on the mantle like

Happy paper people, waiting to give praise.

She placed her flowers just below

On the fireplace bricks like

A bouquet garden,

nurtured for ripe admiring.

It’s an impromptu display, in gentle notions reading:

“I am loved!”

Next to Grandpa’s old chair,

Where part of Grandma’s heart sleeps

At night.

What a beautiful home

She has kept

And keeps.

Memorabilia of a better time

When pride came from the simple things.

With a warm heart and keen eye,

Every adornment

In its proper home placed,

And atop the fireplace mantle

Is where you’ll find

The birthday cards.

Who counted hours out of the sky
And clipped the ends off?
Who quantified
Existence?
Who cheapened the flights of the sun and the moon
And put limits on time
Trapping limitless eyes?

Each day
Is one thousand days and each hour
Is one thousand hours, and
Years pass in seconds
While seconds last lifetimes
Sometimes

But my calendar

Has no capacity for this.

A moment
Lasts as long
As the glow lingers
When it's gone

And all the while
The clocks tick on,

I maintain whoever measured
The day
Was wrong.

What is it like chasing the sun?
    Like waking up to race it?


And what’s it like chasing it in the opposite direction with me?


Is it like falling
     or like lifting
                  
                      off

                            

                              
                                   a cliff?


Am I a weight on your eyelids?


    Do you feel fresh and full
                          of power
When you're carrying the daybreak
         on your back?


Are you dreaming
when we slide into sunrise

           through
                 sleepless eyes?




Will we forgive ourselves



            Once the moon is small

And the stars cannot hide

         The rising tide in my eyes?




Behind a curtain of clouds
from the sun
I will hide.