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.

us, mirror

The way of a mind like a seed
on the wind floats up

instead of with the wind
somehow, or people born
wedged in sidewalk cracks

deep away from the sun
know where happiness
resides tumbling

upon its arrival:
in this I feel almost
a lucky misfit.

Even a self divided is
scattered like pages
lost within the house

with no binding.

I see windows in every room
that inform nothing except
where I have arrived from,

and, I, in every room
stitch a binding, day-
in and out, am

surrounded by a puzzle
of words on paper.

But aren’t us the
song? Aren’t us the
dream and

attuned to truth:
the paradox of remaining
genuine when a melody

unfolding.