I have seen God’s hand
as a cloud bends from the sky, breath
as a fog fell in the highlands, fingers
splitting rock of the glen
for two knees to rise— mountains.

I have traipsed God’s spine;
stepped stones jutting from the hill of her back
dressed in heather, moss, and clover.
Down the winding path
at the bottom of a spring

I found God’s heart,
all of her love welled up in pools.
From the stream I pull
her love’s labor, now in my palm,
a polished stone to skip or to hold.

Bugbitten and peeling, red skin,
wrinkled clothes stuffed in suitcases,
drinking from garden faucets and
running through your neighbor’s sprinklers.

A heat that cooks you from the inside,
leaves you all decay
lying beneath a lazy,
buzzing ceiling fan.

In the warm stillness
a ray of sun catches the dust
spinning, falling slowly.

Hopscotch. Doubledutch. Chalked pink fingers.

I wish I remembered more.
The dust as it falls in the darkness.
The dust just before it hits the ground.

Hazy desert skies,
forlorn orange, teal and starless,
every cloud in tangerine lines.

One earbud in your ear, the other in mine.

I think I’ve become the dust
caught spinning within a sunbeam.

Moths hitting against the window,
cicadas singing outside,
a reminder of the world still breathing in the darkness.

I will always think of those summers and think of you.

In December, I thought I heard the sound of crickets outside my window.

The street lights stutter as snow falls
beneath their mute flickering,
all my dreams or memories of lightning. I'm alone
with the aching crush of snow under my feet.

In February, I miss the sound of falling rain.

My heart falters at the hope of rolling thunder,
disappointed when turning out only to be the harsh wind.
Still– I close my eyes and allow myself to believe
that the storms arrived after all of my wishing.

The wind falls and all I see is
green and glimmering,
choirs of leaves always promising
to return all of the heartache I thought I’d forgotten.

June, you took
everything.

Yet it’s always you coming back to me.

When I try for rolling thunder,
it comes out a knock on the door.
I've stopped checking the mail--
I don't expect to hear
from you anymore.

(Love is pouring from my cracks and my seams.)

Did you hear that the continents are moving back together?
Do they regret the years spent apart?
(If I think too clearly of you,
I must draw myself closer
to squeeze out the aching.)

It is hard to let go
when there is nowhere new to grasp.