let's show the children what it is to brush our teeth and wear deodorant
halt the habits that made my fingerprints as flat as Nebraska and illegible as kindergarten drawings
own up to the grown up that started creeping out our fingernails when we realized our souls were too big for these bodies and our love wasn't a Velcro heart that could detach from a sleeve as easily as all of those parasites wanted us to believe
.we were trees. -and i was a match-
but i couldn't tell if we were huggers or lovers, could never decide if your kisses were breath mints or frost bite
i knew what i wanted you to be
i would always pretend to be a dragon in the winter, smoke escaping my nose with every exhale
but once we grew up i realized that hot air means nothing
if you never find the fire

i want to know how you wrote my eulogy
if it took you five minutes or if it will take five lifetimes
to hack up your excuses like dry hairballs
presented at the feet of every person who will ask
why the little turtle dove is dead to you now

Death was a word
   I thought of when my first dog
   died. It was a thing I held when young
   and dumb, smashing grasshoppers
   with a bottle in the yard.
   It rested in coffins I never saw,
   grew an atmosphere around the weathered.

I touched it once.

But now I know
   it lives in a midnight phone call
   under pouring rain in a parking lot
   where a man paces with the thought
of never being able to love a voice he hears.

Weep! locusts! weep!
Thou rasping chorus overflows
blending  into sultry dusk of June
and deepening nightfall
nocturnal whispers of perfumed
pines and cedars listen in hushed wonder
Echo the dirge of my bleeding heart!
and shattered dreams
Weep! O let thy song be heard!
Voices blended in such melody
harsh though sweet
Wail thy sad sad song!
Thou who reflect a thousand lost yesterdays
and infinite heartbreaking tomorrows...





*~Hilda~

Upon a troubled night, I thought I dreamt
Of  something moving, twisting, causing me
To stumble. Breathlessly, still helplessly,
I bolted upright. There I saw, unkempt,
My face familiar in my mirror, yet
Just over and behind, my eyes discerned
The figure of some man. He looked, and turned
Away, then disappeared. Upon reflect-
-tion Later I could ease my anxious mind,
Until again, another night, I thought
I dreamt of something moving in my glass.
The figure stood in front. I moved to find
the sight of mine own eyes in shadows caught!
I fled, and screamed: "O demon wilt thou pass!"