I descended the stairs in dread,
Shading my eyes
From the late August sun
Coming through the window,
Onto the landing.
The rakes leaned against the garage wall
Like prisoners on work detail.
Mammy had plain porridge,
Toast, jam and strong tea prepared
For our last summer breakfast.
No tomatoes.
We'd work on the clumps of dirt,
Breaking, raking, smoothing,
Preparing the ground for next Spring.
The root cellar we dug beneath
The newly poured porch
Was filled with the harvest
Of the auld sod's outlook.
On the sideboard, stacked in four neat piles,
Rose our school supplies for Tuesday.
He stood guard at the bottom of the yard.
I drove the prongs through the clumps,
Waiting for the school bell.

We count hours slowly
Hot humid air hangs leaden
The days thick and course
Persistent, overbearing
So eternally August

I thought I knew you.
I thought I knew what you liked,
What you knew,
What you were.
I thought that you knew your limits.

But now I wonder
If you were ever that person at all,
If it really was you,
Talking with me,
Laughing with me,
Making me feel safe.

But was I ever safe?

I try to think about how
I myself have changed,
And I can't even figure out why.

Everything is abstract.
Can change in a second.
Doesn't need to follow a pattern at all.

Knowing that I may never know the true you
Ever again
Scares me more than life itself.

my eyes closed shut as i lay in bed
the constant throbbing can't seem to stop in my head
the thought of tomorrow filled me with dread
as i prayed to the gods for me to be dead.

There is something magical
yet frightening
about awakening
to a new day--
on the one hand
I'm alive
and ready to
go in search of a way
to make it through
to live
to survive
until tomorrow
finally comes
but on the other hand
I ache at times
to just hear
the beating, the rhythm
of the death toll drums--

why am I here?
keeps droning on and on
through my soul
and everywhere I look
I search others' eyes
hoping that if they know
they will fill me in,
give me a clue
so that perhaps one day
something will come through
instead of dread and fear
whenever I look off in the distance
or even gaze at what's near--
perhaps today life will give to me
a brand new way
to open my eyes and really see?
by Ami Shae

.
1

The charred rising.  Am I the praying bird?
In the gleaming sun my bones are negative,
My flesh a cypher walking through the plains
As ghost I move, my dark lord, above me
Flocks swirl and spike. I stand accused,
Your pointed face divining oblivion,
And no redemption in the rains of my
Cliff walk days.


2

I see my shroud pinning on the wires
His legs are razored forks spinning my
Compass from True North. Your dark brush-
Fire wings, the swept wind, wheels and strings
My fate. Such black rhetoric in a burn,
Your caws, loosed perches, on the stakes, picks
My crowning grave. Black dove, your feathers finger
As they slice.


3

Smoke, the cardinal blood caries my teething
Bone, spades my hand without a flight.
Taut, the pulled noose my hooded one
I see my scarecrow’s reflexion, the scar,
Let blood, the seeded droppings end trailed
To my door. Feathers, ferry to carry on
Dowsing downward, black knight of down, to sticks
On extended wings.