The man wants you easy,
knocking on the wall
for permission
but lightly, not in need
with that spark –
an anger of too fast words
better held without panic
of long eyes and
their fragile warning,
just like the moon, head
held bowed to the sun
is the owed, owned light
from a distance
hunted on every horizon;
those, back turned and running
are a reflection of another
until quiet,
looking upon the face
of one who demanded
what they will not:
a monster, a victim –
and upon the wall slam
the crumbling heart
knocking loudly on the long night
with dreams made vivid
too struck of love,
indelible by necessity:
the own, owned warmth of self
who once gathering flowers
within a cage grew rich
with seeds
now slipping, or falling,
between every crack
having found no door
to ask entrance
grown uncontainable.
Adaptation
Once living in blue,
how deep the hand in my head
loved by a hungry sky
would become sharp of edges,
ripped my born wings that
a songbird bound; crawled
crushed flowers placed
in pockets I thought
could weave a crown.
It was that I knew first
having arms of cirrus:
insubstantial and searching
like water feels every
form of inauthenticity
and fills it;
I would bleed when needed
and not wanting to die
have untied each
found fiction to see
its kinked rope.
When once there was
first, forced inattention
like my mother unable to
hug when unwatched
could it be enough
that never like her father
left her broken,
she only left –
and a love that made me
has tried to take me
and save me same
stumbling into what is
familiar, many times
until older, I have felt
long beneath a snow
like a seed dreams of
a tree they will know.
skipping stones
Truth, may be cobbled:
first having been strong
as static clings
like poppy pollen in
the school yard, for-
getting what is known
of threat
in oleander chewed of
my family’s garden,
not knowing this
poisoned flavor - I
gather a pocket of stones
too smooth and flat
like the world has been
and wandering, find still water
chewing on each before tossing
having crumbled sand in the mouth
same I was too long held
in another’s
their singing so hot: I like glass
transparently, still not quite
traceable in bright light
the truth held firmly
too round to skim the water
or stack one on top the other
but gathered like a cairn
where the river turns.
skipping stones 