In suburbia,
a blue house with purple shudders;
a sloped hill, more wildflower than grass;
a peach tree, perennial, too old to fruit;
and robins, Miss Carolina robins, catching worms;
all told, making a home.

And a girl with wildflower hair
that reaches down past her waist,
that catches sticks like Miss robin's worms,
that's ends remember times she's forgotten,
that's dead and dry by her shoulders.

And the girl, she's catching caterpillars,
putting them in jars,
plastic wrapping up their sky,
poking stars with table forks,
making them a home.

Until they crack from wooly cacoons
when they're made into something new:
a kitchen moth, drawn to the light,
and so what about you, little girl?
What about you?

In this moment,
All swamp air and sunlight spotlight,
Sat atop an old oak log,
I wonder
Who listened
To the swansong sinking melodies
caught between opulence and open water.
Who will listen
To our deep-space golden records
lost between planet and pale blue dot.
Who is listening
To my hushed hums on an old oak log
that once fell and may have made a sound.

I wonder.

And I listen.

I'm sorry, Mom
The squirrel got the bowl of nuts.
I know you told me to watch.
To keep watch.
But how can it be the puppy
with the black tips
has turned all grey?
How can it be?
She smelled like milk,
now she smells like vet
and clean and dead.
And the brothers,
they were toothy and twelve
and now, somehow, they're men, Mom?
And me?  What about me?
How can it be these legs of mine
sprouted long ago,
and there are muscles now,
beneath the round?
So what I'm saying is,
I must have looked away
Missed a moment (or was it 16 years?)
And this is why
the squirrel has chewed
this tea-stained memory.

I'll say I looked away,
since even that feels nicer
than admitting it all happened,
that the squirrel stole and years stole more,
all while I was watching.

I am wide awake.
I am tired.
And my eyes do not want to be open.
They are old.
They have seen too much,
For today.
They are tired.
I am tired
Of this.
Wide awake
At 4:00am
Jazz on the brain.
Right now
I could dance until my skirts ripped to shreds
On knee high grass, and ticks crawled up my legs
I could dance in that,
And not care about ticks and scraped up shins or
How bad I am at dancing
But I'm too tired.
So instead of twisting myself into somewhere new
My jazz brain
Plays on an empty room
Elevator ******* skull.
Too tired to do anything more than echo
My jazz.
But I'm wide awake!
And I want to use it.
But it's no use against such heavy
Blankets and air and silence and space and brain
And I know I would care about the ticks
And it would hurt, to bleed all over that prickly field
And I would care.
Since imagery doesn't feel the same
Never feels the same
As real world nettles.
So instead of dancing.
I am writing a poem.
And my brain is on jazz
Like fire.
And I am wide awake.
But I am so
So
Tired.

I know you to be
End-beginnings.
Secret.
Hidden,
For me, for now,
Forever, for me, not for you,
Since my forever
Will end long before you
Ever even notice I was looking up.
But we were both born once
Of stars, maybe, of mothers.
And though you are endless
And I am so very ephemeral
I can't help but wonder if
Some of your endless
Lives in my one Moment
Of your great
Forever.

Out in the penetrating haze
Of the natural world
Weapons are used, not made.
No battle is a war
Out in natural light.
And weapons are used, not made.
Indifferent as she is,
Nature picks no side,
And so weapons are used, not made.
When something is born,
In natural light
It is born creature, helpless
So no weapon is born to be made.
Yet under lightbulb, in man's metal warehouse
In sanitary stink and entombed disembodiment,
Some weapons are bred to be played.