strong sun

The sky was heavy the day
I decided I liked orange
and pink together, torn

down the gray, octopus curtain
and placed a flower-bombed
flag in its place

sprinkled bits of periwinkle
to calm the delight,

a shocked, blank edge
calling where the cacophony
of color concluded

and I would sink into the heat
of a long bath, another too
cold day - the sun has slept

for weeks in Seattle,

to float between the shattering
like when I was very small
like a torn hibiscus bleeds –

laying face-up in a kiddie pool
legs a tad too long and splayed
in the time-eating heat

I tried to rub the sun from my eyes

but it just sunk in more
until I could see it behind
closed lids

like a dream in focus:
my body a boat gone
adrift

and sought this halting heat
that pauses every thing,

this version of me –
just a little more time.

preservation

In that former innocence
a second sun bloomed
in my heart, and I
tucked dreams
and hopes

within my small fist
a moth within-
I held it
tense,
in careful regard.

Sometimes
I would tear, slightly
a ghostly wing
having
no space
in a hand to
move:

I shook or would
startle.

And so I began
when it was night
and I could hear the
urgency silenced
day-to-day

to still squirrel away
each fold of brain, the
tender stomach
delicate bones of a toe/
all beneath my pillow
where I would remember
whenever
I could rest

and today, there
I hold my hand
in sleep, reaching
feeling
something
alive

in my hands.