No good for the heart
No good for my self-respect
Good for only pain

My fingers dance across your skin
and small constellations I trace;
There rests Aries on your collar,
and Andromeda frames your face.

Though you’ve labeled these stars a flaw,
I can’t stop myself from thinking
Aphrodite herself did bring
these small constellations to being.

When rooms sleep and birds carry heartache to trees, when light
is gone and peace is woven into dreams: I will build myself a nest
and unfold the poem I stole. I will taste with care the words you
chose, and pretend you wrote them for me.

(I will love, I will love, I will love)

Birds cry and sing in the still-dark,
commit to living one more winter’s day.
In sleeping rooms their heartache finds me
building nests for injured things.
  
I will lock the door when I leave-
and carry their heartache with my own.
I will pilfer light from a low-rolling Sun and
siphon-off peace from the sea.

(I will love, I will love, I will love)

My footprints stretch
from here to the end of
the last beach.
But my tracks have smoothed away.
The sand is perpetually so.
But If the beaches have a memory
of all the passengers thereon
they could tell the history of the world.

Whether masked
Or not
We cannot hide
May our true selves
Unfold
As we navigate
The year ahead
Our hands continue
To pen
Our hearts full
Of the beauty
Of Life
And may we
Just breathe

I wait for your words
as I wait for the dogwoods
in the spring,
and their buds to flower
chalky in the wild woods.