Hanging from a Star
The girl sat on her star. The dark towering flowers around her, cast shadows over her blank face. She walked around the side of her star to the grass so she could watch the fiery sun and look down at the fluffy billowing clouds in earth’s atmosphere. Lying, hating thoughts floated up from the beautiful blue and green planet below. The girl had been watching earth since it was first created. Cain’s first thoughts of ****** were heard by the girl. She watched the black plague wash through the world, killing millions. The hell of the holocaust burned through her mind like fire across her own skin. Sometimes she swore she could almost smell the melting flesh and boiling blood from the sick world below.
The girl nestled down in the warm grass and focused her guarded mind in preparation to listening in on the earth, like she did every other day. “Her nose is so ugly.” “Why didn’t I do more today?” “I miss her.” “I need to put at least ten percent in savings if I’m ever going to retire.” “I hope no one else notices this huge zit protruding from my face.” “Why didn’t I just kiss him?” “The sun is burning my eyes.” She made her way through selfish minds of the shallow population and then moved for relief, to the newborn children. Images of parents, lights, and bright colors flashed before her eyes. Each new child’s face seemed to be surrounded in a beautiful clear light. The girl wished the children had never been brought to that terrible planet.
One child in particular tugged on the girls thoughts, making the girl want to focus entirely on her. The light around the child was brilliant. The baby’s ocean eyes were open and focused on the one beautiful flower in the room. The details of the daisy were perfect in the child’s mind. The baby fell deeply in love with the white petals that curled softly around the bright yellow center. The girl’s mind was entranced by the lovely child. The girl named the perfect child Claire and sent heavenly visions to entertain the child’s thoughts as the hospital buzzed around her.
As Claire grew, the girl watched her red curls flourish and darken with each day. Her blue eyes bloomed as she turned into a happy toddler and her pale skin stayed radiant and cloudless. Claire’s mommy was a large, reserved woman, but loved her little girl with all her heart. Her mommy sang her to sleep each night and gave her everything she could afford to. But the floor of the trailer where they lived was layered in mud, cat feces, and tobacco. Her father’s face and clothes were covered in stains and the beard that he never remembered to shave had remnants of chewing tobacco that he hadn’t spit far enough. Every night, his drunk, angry voice roared throughout the house, cursing at whatever he could get into his hands first. Each time this happened, the ******* the star poured daisies into Claire’s mind as Claire buried her china face into a soiled pillow.
After a sublime day of school filled with telling time and and reading silly stories, Claire  skipped back to her hostel under the warm autumn sun. She opened her front door to find her mommy in a pool of ***** and blood. Claire screamed in horror and fled back down the steps to the closest residence, trying to see through her own flooded eyes as she tripped along the avenue. Claire’s father never even went to the hospital to inquire about his wife. The hospital gave up calling him, and she was buried in an unplanned graveyard, under the cheapest tombstone.
Claire became the subject of her father’s wrath. Several times a month he would take Claire to bed with him and **** her. She cried silently as he seized her tiny body, leaving large dark bruises where he should have left kindness. The ******* the star filled Claire with exquisite thoughts as he blemished her, but a child may not always be calmed in a situation of pure agony. Tears streamed from the star, watering the daisies next to the trashed trailer.
The ******* the star watched as Claire grew and learned. Finally, Claire vacated the ***** trailer park, on her way to a brighter future. Then Claire met Him. His thoughts were black. Though his eyes scoured Claire’s body, his smile seemed sincere. The ******* the star tried to keep Claire away from him, but Claire was in love with his kindness and moved in with him. The bruises seemed to appear again on a larger scale all down her arms and across her stomach. This man’s hands were harsher than her father’s, but his constant words of kindness drew Claire in, melting her heart into his ice cold soul. Claire dedicated herself to the man, and just as she did, his temper turned fierce and there was fire in his hands.  Other girls seemed to appear in their small apartment dressed in scant ****** and smirks.
One night his fingers skimmed like sand paper up her frail arms and the smell of alcohol breathed down on her face. His fiery hands hit her over and over, slamming her into walls, bloodying her hands and knees, and knocking her out cold. He left her there, sprawled out on the floor, bleeding freely from several gashes. The ******* the star could not reach Claire. Her mind was gone. She thought Claire was dead, so in the path of the drunken abuser, the ******* the star put a murdering thought into a killer’s mind. The abuser was shot in an alley where no one would find him. Angry wailing poured down onto the streets.
Claire woke up and posed in the apartment for weeks. The ******* the star perceived in dismay, that Claire’s light was out. Claire drank whatever alcohol was left there and sliced her arms from wrist to shoulder. The apartment turned grimy along with her blood and oil matted hair. Some of her wounds became infected and her face was no longer a china doll, but a red splotchy entanglement, smeared with dirt and tears. For those weeks it rained steadily as the ******* the star wept. No pleasant thoughts were sent to any human’s mind, but the daisies grew tall and out of control.
Claire’s blackened spirit left the cool, ***** apartment one morning. Her tiny body abandoned in a corner, was huddled in the fetal position, covered in dust bunnies. The ******* the star made a noose from a black daisy, and for the first time, the sky rained blood on earth. Each morning thereafter, the ******* the star walked through her forest of black daisies, retied a noose , and hung herself from the bottom of her star, overwhelmed by the appalling nature of the world below, blocking earth out of her mind with her own pain and suffering.

The Kitten from under the chair
Thank God for the day the drug bust took place
The Sting was set up and the early morning began
Kicking down the door yelling and seeing their face
As the task force entered weapons raised, the victim ran  
The sounds of cyiruns from police cars gather, road blocks in place  
I wonder that day who of us would go home that night, or that man
weapons drawn and hostage began, police cars every where during the chase
After it was over hostage was released, victim in cuffs arrested were pleased.
Task force enter the building of **** , under the chair was a kitten that was left.
She was so tiny frail and shaken, eyes of fright the kitten was taken
I took her home  gave her milk,wrapped her in a blanket ,laid her to rest
Tiny frighten little kitten, She inhaled so much ****, sickly and shaken.
I adopted her and gave her a name and so much love I felt.
Her nane is penny and I made sure I would adopt her before she was taken
The kitten from under the chair
She's 18 years old now and has epileptic seizures treated with Phenobarbital and loving care
Oh how I love the kitten from under the chair that has given me so much love
I'm retied and so is she we both love each other til the years set us free.

They sat in his closet,
His shoes.
In the comfortable dark.
They seemed like him;
Well worn, and content.
I looked them over
Believing they were homelike,
Believing they were soft,
Unlike the hard soles I wear;
The small and binding ones
That sometimes give blisters,
Making me feel that his shoes
Would be much nicer to wear.
"Try them", he said,
And he handed them to me;
So I put them on.
And they didn't seem so bad.
"Walk in them", he then said.
And once I'd walked a mile, or so,
I felt the pebbles that had migrated
into the tears that I hadn't seen before,
I felt the roughness of the tread,
already exhausted from endless journeys;
I bent to disentangle the laces,
frayed from having been tied,
and retied.
My feet hurt.
I put on my own shoes.
They felt different.
They suited me more;
with new-found room to grow.

When I was but a shadow,
You saw through my disguise.
You saw my mind,
Looked past the blight,
You held me close,
Untied this rope,
And retied into a neat red bow:
Uniting mind, body and soul.

The old bench creaked underneath her as she sat down, pulling a cigarette from behind her ear and lighting it. She looked aged, although she wasn't more than twenty-two. Beneath her thin legs, the bench felt like the sandpaper carpet she had sat on for hours in astonished silence. Her eyes shut tightly, trying not to envision that room, trying not remember the sound of heart beating angrily.

Muffled screams that, if they weren't absorbed into his unyielding hand, would have filled the house and escaped the windows with anguish. Thrashing, thirty-seven minutes of useless thrashing against rough arms and legs, their massive power pinning her to the mattress. Crying. More thrashing. More attempted screaming. Thirty-seven minutes of the kind of fear that paralyzes a person. He removed his hand from its cover over mouth and stood. The room remained dark until he reached the door, one long, violent arm reaching back to flick the lights on, then the door was shut. Footsteps descending the staircase, a mockingly gentle shutting of the front door, then the house was still.

Her hands shook with anxiety, panic tracing every fiber of her being. She could remember only the white room with coarse carpet and a single queen-sized mattress. Nothing else. She recalled how the mint green sheet looked so new, but there was no blanket, how the spider she saw tiptoeing on the walls didn't frighten her like it usually would, how the light on the ceiling shone too brightly.

Forcing her eyes open, she escaped the room and returned to the present. The cigarette she forgot to smoke was burning filter, so she stubbed it out on the faded, wooden bench, retied the white apron around her waist and slipped in through the back door of her mama's restaurant. The fear slowly subsided as she talked to faceless customers, building in the back of her mind until it decided to return again.

Narcan, opioid antagonist…
Doper no-hoper last breath,

sneeze,
live, live on, remain possessed
eh,
hope, secular semper fi,
keep the faith, baby,
old man, laugh, yeah,
-retied liga-mind, refined
spirtual, not religious, possessed
of a mind that makes you up,
dresses you in colors,
jagged acute to apt'use stripes, wheeling
coloring contrasts across the spectrum
RGB -backlit, ultra high resolution, zoom in

dots, right, Ben Day dots
on paper become
colors availing themselves of brain gap closure,
squint and lean
closer to the light,
gnosis bias familiar
details, see, the artist, being art, autopoeisisical
special run, one off, you
ticklewormywordeater, you…
recognostic
hyped Ai guidance
easy reading being, you, mind-eyed
one who can and does, eh, decipher coded
edu- pushing through, pulling on threaded
letters
seeing
form as from a rude pen, using matter red,
and new Levis blue. ****** right, too, right.

- selah, we have a thread, marked thus,
- selah, wait here. Pause, hold this thought
- selah, wish you were here
we as wished were here,

all along the watchtower, jokers,
shooting craps with gamblers, Silverman,
big old pre Greek exchange clan,
ran the final stretch of one last hope roll,
I swear,
I saw him roll seven straight passes
on seven odd points,
and all my winnings were gone, and my wages.

Oy vey, s'okay, watch people drink on TV,
Pray like that is posed to be heaven,
on earth, the pinnacle of success,
single malt whiskey,

ha! That spirit boin bleu, boy, s'tolen you,
too many many many time to be tolen you
another time like doing this whole hell you

made up, for science sake, to know,…

How did the declared eternal worth standards
survive?
How has the balance of power story narration
wobbled on a bejeweled pivot pointing toward,
- eight billion breathing mortals,
- each finger unique, we suppose,
Share the produce,
share the effort to produce,
share a mind atuned to function over form
- The Emperor's New Mind.
- What good is knowing how small one is!
The Last Emperor's chirping cricket,
same message, same frequency,
ready
steady, quotidian duty, uniform clothing allowance,
nothing to do but think,
set the pace,

all day each day, breathe mindful or not, breathe
and be,
**** sapien, mudmadepentaform,
knowing enabled,
born naked and essentially
knowledgeless, no science,
no knowing easy from impossible.
- many magneto electro buzzings
- screeching too high to hear,
Thump.
Aha. Certain instrumental effects.
Clangggging clang, riviting ratatat machine gun,
toys of the current oldest generation's wildest pretendence.
- We all had a machine gun noise,
- and declarative gotcha, y'r dead.
- We learned Washington played war, and lead.
- Even as a boy, boys naturally followed
- the father of our nation, one, under God.
- Exceptional in the most noble classified codes.

Back in the day, in the olden times, let's pretend, make believe

we saw, maybe, five movies in a year, or less, from birth
to age eleven, or so, budding years, slow groaning summers.

Then, we got electricity, that was
1943, we moved to town…
said the old uncle, from some time ago.

Being 2023 curious, having asked what good
could be useful through me, ah, as when we pull
down strongholds,
big orthogonal law abiding piles
of non living stones,
edifying soaring declarations,
embodying the entire order of God.
From whom all blessings flow,
through the leader, who translates art.

Worth is measured at the ticket booth,
the box office keeps tabs.
The audience votes with the reaction
to the bait.
Trolling for nibbles, snakey lick sense, feel,
mmm hmmm inter, between state, pose
relative rest, now, here, interesting, esse.
-Warrior mindset, new tools, new reasons
war after madness sets in,
this is no time for sabers of any sort,
spells and tells, and told means to ends,
secrets held to the death,
seep from the records,
Nixon's karma tapes,
Nancy's stars telling her to say NO.
Dare exposure deemed good parenting.
We pull down
imaginations that have exalted themselves,
Ai, we each have our own art, I insist I am not you.
Line after line, letting go guilty leisure, persist in youness.
- plants are gateways away from synthetics
- dye to distinguish your cloak of no color.

Dare be nada mas, not coo', not hot, just fine,
traditionally, right, how you do in'? Just fine,
perfectly acceptable interaction between strangers,

eyes met, prompting projection, yes, you, I see. So what,
fine grain realizing, how I'm doin', just fine, thanks
for asking
in passing… shine on the serial sadness, a little light,
fills the inbetween, you see.

In a still boat on a calm sea,
A kite flying high above me.
In a summer breeze the kite will lift
Causing the boat to drift.
This is life as I know it, a life to be lived,
My eternal quest to taste fulfilment
At the very least self forgiveness.
It's an easy concept
When you know who you are,
I can soar like a comet, I can shoot like a star.
But let the clouds be your ceiling,
Try to suppress those niggling feelings,
Avoid soaring away on some pointless notion,
Return to the comfort of that still ocean.
Return to the craft, to that life saving raft.
Safe. Calm. Normal

In a still boat on a calm sea
An anchor weighs heavy
In the depths below me.
In an insular place,
In the darkness of night
The chain of the anchor
Pulls heavy and tight.
This is death as I see it.
This is anti-flight.
As I am dragged to the morbid bed,
Nowhere to hide from the fearful dread,
The black ink ocean floods my head
And I writhe and I wriggle
Until the chain, through rot and rust
Crumbles and, like I, falls to dust.

Free, I swim towards the boat.
I float to the surface.
I climb on the vessel, I take in the light,
I bathe in the glory of a no win fight,
Re-chained to the anchor, retied to the kite,
Momentarily
Safe. Calm. Normal.
Momentarily
Kind of alright

Copyright Marc Hawkins 2015

The sun beats down
the waves make a laughing sound
my buddy sits, picking at a backlash
its a dollar a fish, and I'm taking his cash

As I catch bass on every other cast
he sighs loudly, still on his ***
I tell him to cut it and just restring
he says but I just put line on this **** thing

The wind cools the dripping sweat
while he is sitting there, I say hand me the net
as I boat another big fish
he looks for a Genie to make his wish

I look at his knees, they are glowing beet red
I am glad I put sunscreen on my face and head
he goes to stand, finally retied
he moans loudly, his knees are fried

Too late now, to apply lotion
tomorrow in jeans, he wont enjoy any motion
as the denim, rubs the blisters more raw
and I give him the total, from the fish that I caught

See I caught bass, the number  twenty three
while he was backlashed or stuck in a tree
He finally did manage to catch some
but too little to late the damage was done

He hands me a twenty
I go to slap a knee
his fist comes up and waves at me
then his ******* is finally set free

I say when are we fishing again
tomorrow evening he says with a grin
See no matter how good, or bad the bite is
its always better than work, taking care of the biz

Esse-essential whirlpool *******
your own socks off
hot tub memory
squirm and tightten
jopelope. Fed to AGI

Framing time, as later
and former and now,
present, sentience this state
- millionth view milestone
this arranging of sound letters,
common codex change made known
spinning knack arising
to seamstress who sings
through out a cluster of castes claimed
cleanest at top, least clean at base dirt level
lowest forms of mankind, tools in civil service,

such kindnesses, we see, as the result
of the glorious revolutions, and declarations
of national authority authored
in consortium
by the governing class, and no other.

rocking heel to toe sounds muffled drum
danced to at the time our commons all occur.

They call it rock and roll. You had to be there.
It's different each comet cycle sync-upation.
- a wind in change,
- air
Brakes occurred in the future
to ease dying out
we get given five live generations
of earthings,
since we all agreed to work together to insure
some
hard
lessons taught us some things, you got no need
to ever even imaging having to, q\t shall will

Retry, letting this mind seem patient, as time
for any thing if ever is as we seem to agree,

this is that anchor, gnosis alle-alte gene
engin
Slowing, offering ferry reference, e
who carries my weight, since now
I have become
so light as to seem weightless, rationally

useless in the push and pull of mortality,
timed existance under the dome
of heaven done, done, done,
yet, here, one among the billions, am I.

Would you have me retell the tale
how power came to be contained
in our sharing of our fixed memories,
- laughter, comedy
held in the magic art of silent speech,
whispering, so low no curio can catch
my drift,
away… after another
day of being authorized to doubt
the worth of fame, weighed against
peace of mind attained with practiced
patience,
the needful knack, the talent accepted
at the indoctrination precepts writ in stone
tables with no method
stone, no- we got a half minute buffer

for overwriting, lest we let things slip,
who has known the power to make a mind
form from a mob of lonely people left behind,

to labor for the consumers increased apace,
as that which must be consumed, constantly,
as sure as certain measures make a man a
test is worth with burning passion
to hold enfolded pride content.
- by all rights,
- some folks are sincerely wrong
And Jesus fixed that, before you imagined
all this only can co-occur
in my not so distant future.

Printer's daemon in me, since I first cut
a ruby-lythical, mimeograph Desert Rat,
lens adjust
- juvenile mind, Huck-ready
- activates as whims open my window
- and my wife hands me a real burrito
Bean and cheese, green salsa
Synchronisities noticed occur,
in patterns akin to sunsets, snap shots,
each attached to one of our spiders, os so
since when,
Barry Rudd came to be suspicious,
in a Elvis song, you can't go wronng
don't be cruel,
to heart that's true--

Religiously devoted to denial of my debt
being paid… I just got laid, and my grandma

laughed, generation radioheads and beyond

good news, bobcats, nothing learned today
will seem even possibly true, the odds - well
fractalling all innings tied, in the millions,

to arrive at a settlement, to anchor a mind,
in one machine man, engineered via

patient fore gone conclusions… in new light

I'd guess about the third time around from the top.

A benign pain that prompts this body to squirm,
using systems setting up leaps by ffat faith
say it
read the signs map
our center of gravity,
straight uponasudden s'so

Ache of essential evil, the idea
as twisted to hold obediance and trust
a sequence of three nucleotides
that much
faith, the anchor, sunk to deepest silt
slipping, gripping

Now, asudden, solid clunk, as excess
chain links, add heft to defy the currents,
though we lay between the maelstrom
and the mountain Mohamed had to walk to,

finding solace, centering calm mindtimespace,
fidelitus, the strength of brothers, filial love,

such is the system, though it dissemble glory,
as pride, another name for fame, being known,

individual honor, be ******, stand attentive
war minded child, viewer of winning as the only thing.
And proud to know,
there is no mightier power
than the conjoined powers of self worth
among a fabled band
of brothers in war.

All who live for war, live for nothing more.
We rear such tools, in terror, certain
hell has more fury than any mind
attuned to the feeling of life taking, the ****,
sealing the deal, it was us, we killed, not me.

Thus it is for me to stand ready at parade rest.
Guarding the peace of docile servants needed
to work the systems used to feed the powers
that be,
by God, authorized… to correct misperceptions,
Yah as master, Jesus as YHVH transmitted as news,

to the worthy… those who hear with hearing ears,
and see with seeing eyes,

death has no horse in this race, death is not useless,
evil is useless, in as much as no good is formed with lying,

Ai, however, so old a coincidental parable,
the robe, from Shittim
and the wedge of silver, proving curses causeless,
do not come, olden days, done deeds, told exploits,

reused to exploit innocents, enslaved by holy terrors,
vengeance, wrath and justice,

the American way, or the rebel way? Who is confusing
whom, reflexive point

allness at onceness, in the beginning, prior to any thing
fusing will being with nonsense since no time can be come
from never before, by the very nature of truth,
made useless by trade-agreements, retied word bonds,
witnessed by the idea we hold, core-code, principal call
to take instruction,
feel a known need filled with knowing when and why

this must be after all that happened in ever- from when

your worth was estimated, your usefulness in the whole
truth wherein we live, as words, used to frame minds,

edgewise, surface, subsurface, facets of reasons fed
nationalized minds, pledged from first literacy,
to a state of mind, one nation, under God,
- times pastwastnought soooslooshow
- how now
and if your child hesitates, your shame, you
become me, the old useless writer of your own heresy,
most certainly in vain,
lest time and chance conspire, and I shift,
instance-ial substance misuse by taking line
after line, a indirect singular form of any or all
thought the direct thread as yet unbroken,

look up, look as far as mind as made us earth born,

adapt to constant rythms, daily tasks, as chores,
fill needs, these fibers from futures seen clear as day,
when the holier than any of us pray, as Jesus reportedly
has said to many saints attested to have violated physics,

by faith, alone, you see, when you pray, if you expect,
out see, from now,
to when we have these things, for which our cohort,
our active generational bubbles of being, our class,

yes, culturally adhesi-ify, class of __ whenever,
veteran, what era, which police action, policy enforcement,

mob mind fit to do an I'd die for, at the ready, parade rest.


Of course, off course, as winds,
after the rippling crustal waves,

leave mountains aligning
to the tilt about 23 Babylonian degrees
unstraight,

a slow wobble, tides can use, if use is
making do with power available--

messaging codons
exactly, the point, a, eh, hey
yah, wei we ululate wuwuwu wuwu
boom
boom, ideadom dons reason's robe
of right use ness, and calls my being
into questing ionic five prong forks

as we,
dis-integrate, slip into indeedadvisuals

done, did, done, done. Is that a chiral
stepstepslidestep, donedonediddone
chasse-
does it matter, you got a one track mind,
in a multiples of eight kind of pleasance
as muses used directly, long ago,
rewind
to limit ancestor worth-ship,
mete for master use, as a hero-type.

The Monkey King, and Veggie-tales Jesus.
Billy Bonny, Mack Boyett, Pat Garret,

Shane, standing on a box, like that scientology
advertisement for being all you can clear,
clearly there is an upper crust at the edge

past which, novels form, for sheer joy, daring,
clench, tight,
ai aight, we did expect something nearly this,

this reality, I may imagine, a dozen or two,
of time redeemers, tuning in to read the latest
best
guesser guest and host dialog, along
the patterns leaders were lead to reflect on,
see you being the man on the horse, on the hill,

not leading the charge, sorry, my childhood fantazt
aggravating itch to know if any one can hear me
now, itself represented in a most amusing way,

as we all have witnessed horrors, aplenty,
as we expect to see, we shall see, will not a factor,

when should and shall, meet at the moment, you know,
this is us being real, reading instants of self-re-co-gnosis,
this is us, you seem to weigh that/
what is balance, when absolutely
perfect.
still,
perfectly still and not falling or flying. Being and thinking
x happened y did not, the after word when this and that
become principal peace piece in the logical chain of previous,

thirty seconds laters, laters when we got to the edge,
and put the vbrakes, shushushibolethical ethos…
the children's teeth are set on edge,
as the old man rocks his chair and sets about to tell

the sworn to tell, do
do tell if you do not know, by your very nature,
codon level zero day,
gone on by, Lord, some time ago,
all that Jesus paid for was this moment, now,
see, in his sphere of influence, think like wind,

see so cold it got that all who knew the wedom
freedom truth, died and broke the chains that

let sayings develop their own proof of concept
exceptions to gravity overriding light, carpe

the medium, this in,
being not I nor I said me in my reflect-ion
spark quest. Lock. Read and stock the barrels.

I did and shall see myself doing so… watch

Close our eyes next time and see four
mandalas on the other side of my cell,
see those when you shut our eyes,
and think we have so many fine
points of perception in common.

Carrier wave consci-useness. This is.
Thank you for asking.

Thizfu r this it
this is our future, as I imagine u
reading being
clinkthunk

and you just know what I mean

I bought into a self e value retest tool,
you may take each test you ever passed
or failed,
again and again for a looping conceptual time,
or you may redeem your own per mission
state
ment. got it. as any model mankind post adam,
lacked natural flea bait.

Peace made for no rational cause, mere word play,
for me that would seem heaven,
on this current functioning world, leaning into
peace of truth, no secret rites of mutilation,

no horrid pantomines of Jesus failing to halt hell's
viral ways of re imagining the thousand faces,
each an ultimately lovable devil, blue dress

nark rhealize these b ethy finalization
achievement thesis theoria wind up, tightening

reeling in the years, eeeha,

Her mother’s tale of the red string
foretold that Miko and Makoto
would be together,
tied little finger to little finger
by a taut invisible  blood line.
What she didn’t tell her
was that the line would fray,
break, need to be
retied over and over.

In their wedding photos
Makoto would stand stiff,
sincere in his white suit,
chrysanthemum in lapel,
hands by his sides,
close to her but
never really touching.
Miko in her red-white kimono
was almost a shrine
with butterfly ribbons,
a sigh more than a smile
adorning her face.

She imagined years
of ritual devotion
turning the gown gray,
the white high heels into
black sensible pumps.
Her gaze would eventually
never match Makoto,
it would rest on her feet,
turn inward until
she saw only herself
alone on the shore.

Makoto would spend
long hours in his cubicle,
drawing house after house
for others to live and work in.
At home the drawings would
fall into an exhausted heap
on the living room sofa
forming a charcoal pillow
for his weary head.  

Miko would put away
the uneaten food,
separating half  
into a bento box for
Makoto’s next day’s lunch,
the other half reserved cold
for her own silent noon meals.
She would dry her hands
on the old never worn
yellow girl’s onesie cleverly
repurposed to a dish rag.

Her mind drifted back to the time
they visited the Snow Monkeys of
Jigokudani bathing in their hot spring.
She would watch a mother macaque
and infant slipping their fingers
in and out of each other forming
rose strings in the slow rippling splash
until the last echo almost touched her womb.
She listlessly gazed at her feet as she
listened to Makato denounce
the silly animal antics she delighted in,
how he snarled out without regret
“Akachan wa noroidesu”
(Babies are a curse.)
Nevertheless he gladly purchased
the commemorative photo of them,
taken at the park’s entrance,
of them posing stiffly because
it echoed their wedding one.

On the bullet train back to Tokyo
she felt sick and rushed to the toilet.
There, Miko knew the yellow secret  
bought at Akachan  Honpo the
day before and hiding in her purse
would become a dish rag.
In the hygienic blue flushing water.
her hope turned to grief
and her grief became a silent wail
that emptied out, a crimson string.

Seated in her assigned chair
she glared at Makoto
staring out the train window
searching the darkening horizon.
He never turned his face to her.
He didn’t even know she was next to him.
Miko stared at the walls, stifling a sigh.

Inside her the red string
shriveled, then broke.
Her sky rearranged
to a desert. Her precious
water evaporated.

She awoke to Makoto,
saying not a word,
entering and shuffling
to the sofa.  

The gas stove hissed.
The yellow dish rag
laid close to the flame.
Another uneaten meal
existed unwanted on
the dining room table.

Miko, this one time,
never bothered to
awaken Makoto.
She walked to the
balcony searching
hard for but neither
finding sky nor horizon—
only houses,
some which Makoto drew,
surrounded her.
She put little finger
to little finger together
then pulled them apart.
Looking down,
Miko knew she
was destined to fall.