words can stand empty like shrines of gods forgotten
and cave rooms inhabited by nothing
but stones and decay
people die
and fade as flowers do in anticipation
and then winter comes
things fall to the same dust
from which we were made and shall return
so to you who go before us; unafraid
I wish love was enough
to bring back the soul and make it marry body again
so that two can become one
and breathe life into you again
to make the world and this vacuum created
whole again
I love you even beyond death
and life itself
sway and sail away into the light
where you shall be clothed with warmth the world knows nothing about
- nothing left to say

A piece of white paper
A box of new crayons
An assortment of colors
A palette of shades that are
More than just labels

Chestnut; a horse's coat
A woman's locks
And a roasted treat.

Mahogany; a tropical tree
A dining table
And a name of a bay.

Copper; a lucky penny
A kettle
And Lady Liberty's robe.

Burnt Orange; a sunrise
A sunset
And a sunburn.

Brown; hot cocoa
A chocolate lab
And muddy boots.

Flesh; pale peach skin
Not mine
And maybe not yours.

One shoelace

a few bolts

ticket stubs

a half of a picture

souvenir key chain from Florida

fragments

of him

tiny ghosts

tucked in the corners

so I always find him

never quite

let him go

always reappearing

clinging on to my skin

leaving the residue of his name

she is
the chill swept over
frail skin—

held dear to the summer,

the thrashing
of warm raindrops
and sand

known only to the bare—

warm throughout,
but the chill still
tickles her skin

while her blood simmers.

My skin of steel
Battle-hardened
Decades-old
But yet to break

Like precious few
She comes in
I still don't know
What she will bring

Then a warmth
Starts to grow
Sets ablaze
My firey soul

Before I know
What is happening
Flaming steel
Dripping off my skin

What remains
No regret
But the burns
Not quite healed yet

You can cover yourself with a flawless skin,
It won’t make you a flawless person.

broken
surroundings
hidden
underneath
discrete skins
flat spots
drowning in
superficial
layers of
constricted
capillaries
walls
embed in
bleached skin

made of
salty tears
and eggshell
crystals
cutting out
the wafting
of diurnal
light-blue
ozone

resistant
coating
burning on
crusted
cheek
beneath
thin
recalcitrant
cuticles

forcing into
lamping
layers of
red-blue-
purple-yellow-
green-white-
ecchymosis
symptoms
just­if­ying
on its own

We never stopped inflicting
The wounds our grandparents gave us
They withheld the inventing
Despite dulled knives
And cold summers
Running their course through weakened veins
And softening our skin into old newspaper

With every scapegoat,
      I fed the grass of  perjury.

Then I'd be a distortion,
pealing the fragmented
              façade from me...

Walking away from the wreckage.

       Leaving them trapped
and broken in the remnants
                                         of my echo..

                                         Hi I'm Judy,
   I always like names with J..

No goats this time,
                                   just sheep ready
to follow me to the slaughter house..