I'm going back to the place where
Poems are born
where I first thought a thought to
write about, worthy of print and
text
worthy of my time I spread so
thinly

I return to the place where
poems are born, in
thought and in
Existence

in a moment's breath, a hope, a fear of
losing, love of
gaining

This is the place where
Poems are born
Between my hand and a piece of
Paper-
persuaded by the small
breaths of time spent
seeing more than I
have time to
Paint or care to
craft

In a moment's shudder of not-knowing, persevering, maybe not believing in praying-
I don't know anything

Except that I am the place where
poems are born

It's 11:37
and that's
pancake
heaven
when I want
to rise
and follow my eyes
my de-
sire to eat
and eat
and eat
and eat
and eat some
*******
more

It's 11:38,
pancake masticate
where I feel like
I'm starving
carving fake
hunger
pangs
into my
mind and I
eat and I
eat and I
eat and I
eat
and I

It's 11:39
that's pancake time,
that's a near rhyme
I'm writing as to
stop myself
from wanting to
eat and
eat and
eat and
eat
and eat and
eat and

and I

Your hands are an
Egon Schiele and
I'm sinking
dropping
  descending in-
   to pits of
   sharks,
   fits of blue,
   an ocean
    of veins meeting
    fingers touching
    webbing through
    the hues

     It's not like it's
     the first time, no,
     and if I'm lucky,
      it sure won't be
      the last,

         but you and your
             Schiele hands are
                wading through the depths
                  of me
                    to where
                                     I can't
                                         go
                                            back.

People are always
saying
be brave,
like it's something
that
I can
control-

and at night, when I lie
in my bed
and I'm on my back, quieter than
a branch
or the floorboards
beneath my frame,

I want to tell you
that I am a bird-
who does not know
that she is
brave when
she jumps and trusts
the fall-

who knows no difference
between courage and
instinct and
is not brave
at all

Love is a sculptor
taking me into
her gentle hands
and pushing, pulling
molding me into
a shape I've never
seen before

She's kicking her leg and her heel
is spinning the wheel
and her fingers are pulling me up
into a tower of
hope, hovering, always
hovering
against her bare hands
on the edge of collapse

I've spent a lot of time
in the pottery room
and a lot of hours
near the kiln
but love is modeling me
into her portrait


laughing,
all this time I thought it was I who was the artist