in a thicket of white
robes, grape jelly &electrodes;
i hid carefully an a
typical circular sanity anti
psychotic. it tasted industrial
in that space between my gums,
it bled a fertile crescent out
of the sock in which i left it.

underneath her floral
robe, wild black hair &pointe;; nose
she hid playfully a plot
of bones laced up & showed me
the secret at sunrise. it looked
so familiar in the gently rising
fire, it turned a prison into
a hemlock forest, it gave a
new meaning to the empty term "wing".

in my life there have been many
mothers, but this one had a smile of
pure patchouli & this one shook
my cot until i was awake.

in her life there had been many
storms, and the day she surrendered her
lips to the water a fisherman hooked
her & untangled her bones.

they say i'm supposed to smell old
memories, but a decade later i
most clearly hear her singing.

they say light is a particle &
sometimes it is a wave, &when; it
is which depends on where your boat
is floating. &tha;; time i was a
fish with a hook through my eye
i kept swimming downward to salvage my life.

i was afraid of brightness drilling holes
in the surface, afraid of the dark spots
under the corals, and the whole time i
struggled to breathe in the water, she
patiently reeled me into the moonlight.

imagine my amazement when i saw my own two feet.