The town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die.

It moves. They are all alive.
Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children, like a god, from its eye.
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die:

into that rushing beast of the night,
****** up by that great dragon, to split
from my life with no flag,
no belly,
no cry.

My grandmother has a pillow
on her couch that says
"God couldn't be everywhere
so he created grandmothers"
My grandma may have a slight hobble,
veiny, knobby hands, and
smile lines and wrinkles of every kind
but she most certainly is
an angel from God

She may have the marks
of a long life on her face
but she has the kindest blue eyes
like delicate robin's eggs

She may not have a model's skin
or figure anymore, but
she wears elegant, clean suits,
shimmering brooches  
on her collars,
and glittering little earrings

She may not have a voice
like smooth velvet anymore, but
upon hearing my slightest achievement
she raises it in ecstatic praise

Sometimes she looks at me in such a way
that I can feel her heart rise with hope and pride
for me and
for what she somehow knows
I am going to accomplish
she smiles a warm little smile and calls me
"the lady with the almond eyes"
pronouncing every consonant
as if each one is a delicate teacup
she is trying so hard not to break

I don't know how she knows
that I am going to make the world proud
but when she calls me
"the lady with the almond eyes"
somehow
I know too

cruelly,love
walk the autumn long;
the last flower in whose hair,
they lips are cold with songs

for which is
first to wither,to pass?
shallowness of sunlight
falls,and cruelly,
across the grass
Comes the
moon

love,walk the
autumn
love,for the last
flower in the hair withers;
thy hair is acold with
dreams,
love thou art frail

—walk the longness of autumn
smile dustily to the people,
for winter
who crookedly care.

You're not created only to write epistles of sad poetry and use too many metaphors,
Devoting them all to an address that won't write you back.
You're not made to be here to be held back.
Or to wait around for a call of your name from a voice that'll never bother to come around.
But you're made to love and to be loved,
To see things and to be seen.
To capture beauty in every way that is possible.
You were made to be.
And this is your call,
So be it.

Put your hand
here
Can you feel the rage in my soul?
The blood seeping under
the glass in my eye?

Do you see the sun's anguish
as she boils into nothing
beneath the merciless night sky?
She shoots her bloodcurdling scream
into the air before she surrenders;
it echoes behind her
a vengeful inferno on the horizon
whose smoking, dying embers,
with their last angry cries,
melt into the Earth
and cover all of us

The sun gave to us, her children
her rage
her fire
we burn
with the heat of her
wrathful flames.