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 