A stone in the sand
dents me
at the edge of frailty –
I am of parts, jagged as
the coastline where
the tide pushed,
having gone far now
from the beginning
like my mother went
back, where waters were
warm, where the ocean
kept a song of us she
never stopped loving,
and she tried more than
many will need
having, on cruelty,
a softness she built up
and beneath it a knife
always ready;
sensing it there
held even in sleep,
the forced inattention to
giggle when she would laugh to
stay silent unless agreeing –
and I existed in fable
taking on too much water
and snapped as the rebar
too solid and needy broke,
and dropped in pieces
like every stone
left in places I felt free –
every bit of that old heart
except what gave purpose
left behind, grabbing
at leaves and sky, ravenous
feeling their immortality, their
constant warmth like
a mother’s love,
gone before it was gone.
Tag: Poetry
Misfit
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 