the watchful

Farmer Oak awakens at the touch of dawn. The window is boarded up.
Light seeps through the cracks and he pulls the blanket over his eyes
while the cat curls into his shoulder.

There is a cup of water on the nightstand and a lamp with a bulb at half-life.
His stomach speaks.
Nearly breakfast.
Heavy footsteps walk out of the room next to his and pause at his door.
-Awake?
Says Tom.
-Nearly.
Says Oak.

Tom turns on the radio. Music sinks into the walls.
The cat turns over, mumbling something in her sleep.

Farmer Oak cranes his neck to look at her,
then pulls the blanket over her chin.
He shifts his weight. The bed creaks.
Her dark hair tickles his nose and he brushes it aside, gently.
She turns to him, still sleeping.
Her face, calm.
He is watchful.

 

—-

written for Memory

Read Full Post »

venus de milo

Sleep escapes me
A step beneath me
No arms to guide me
Muscle and bone

Come and find me
Those hands inside me
This sheet around me
Street lights and stone

 

 

***

an attempt at rhyme for: Street

Read Full Post »

evening

Begin with Atlas.
The world nestled across his shoulders
The weight is a kiss
Something heady,
soft and full of life.

Now passing cars stencil shadows across the wall,
follow their movement.
Evening casts a sheen
across the kitchen table.

see it?

silver and blue and perfect?

Diane thinks:
Why must the world be a burden on Atlas’ shoulders?
What if he carries it freely?

Picture the earth is a book full of stories
he holds in his arms,
where one face rests in the crook of her shoulder
fitting perfectly,
smooth skin
dampened hair
curling
in divine exhaustion.

End with Diane,
listening to breath.

 

Read Full Post »

the first

The first thing he sees is the back of her head.
She wants to go to him. She wants to say so many things,
but she doesn’t know where to begin.
When she steps into the room, he pulls off his headphones
and stretches out his arms.
She notes the breadth of him.

People forget about the window. They move in and out. They carry themselves across the hall with heavy footsteps. They open the fridge. They close it.
They wash their hands. They fill their cups with water. They drink, deeply.
They say, “Good morning” and “Have a good night.” Everything must be good. People forget about the window and blinds. They forget how flowers wilt
without the sun.
“It’s so sad,” she says. “They’re dying.”
“Why?” He asks, though he already knows the answer.
They work in a place without any sunlight.
They smile as she says this.
They don’t know why.
They can’t help it.
They forget.
Why.

Read Full Post »

on canvas

She held the cup to her lips and and felt the heat curl up to her glasses, smearing the lens with strokes of breath. She took a sip and swallowed. The sweet tea slipped into her mouth, and she held the taste of it on her tongue before it slid down her throat, coating her belly. She stared at the floor. Hard wood at her feet. Cold tile ahead of her. The future was vast, a blank canvas all smooth and white. Mila pressed a hand to the mug and felt the heat flow into her palm. The house was empty. Somewhere in one of the rooms music was playing a soft melody and she heard a burst of laughter from one of the neighbours on the street outside her window. The curtain held back the sky. It was Saturday.

She thought she heard footsteps in the room above her, but that was the house stretching under the afternoon glow during the time of day when everything is touched with a hint of gold.

Still holding the cup to her lips, she murmured into blue ceramic, “This is how it is. Life and its stillness. The sun on the back of a neck. Hard work. Happiness. Smiles and laughter. Sadness. Quiet tears that track across the cheeks. Shining eyes and the wind tossing hair about, roughly. One either pulls it up and away or pushes it back behind ears with fingers. Gloves. Hands in pockets. Some wear hats, other pull the hood over their head. There are scarves and open coats. Think of the trails. How hope rises above the covers with each awakening. This is new. This is old. This something to be remembered.

Look at me.
look at me look at me
I’m here.
I exist.
I matter.

We don’t know what we want or what we can give, or we have always known it, and we pull ourselves up to show them. I can’t give you what you want. But I have always known that it is better to be honest. Love all, trust few, do wrong to no one. Do I want to scar my skin with these words? What will they look like when time shapes my arms into folded flesh?

Here I am.
here I am here I am
This is what you want.
Come find me.

When life swells, the woman croons softly and traces her hand where she thinks the face will be, and her voice coaxes something beautiful. I think I heard you before I saw you. Perhaps once or twice. But that was the first time. Who is Colin? The other man. He is the one who isn’t real and lingers on the fringes. Say something.”

Mila paused at the sound of a key in the lock. She straightened. Someone was coming. The rest of her words swirled along the rim of her cup before drifting lazily up to the high stucco ceiling. She crossed her legs and looked at the door as it opened.

Then the rain fell and clouds shifted their shoulders with the scent of an early spring whispering to the sidewalks and parched grass, “Finally. Finally. Finally.”

Read Full Post »

Birth

Erase the words: damaged goods
and replace them with “rebirth”

Nothing is completely broken.
There is the ability to reconstruct
to salvage
to maintain
to flourish

Sleep soundly
Awaken with the morning light

Read Full Post »

orange alert

This drink is made with care. The cup is wide, tall, and foaming at the mouth. I wonder if I can sink my face into this foam and feel clouds sifting through cradles under the thawing sun. I am learning how to be productive. I am assembling my assets and words, measuring the value of my life in a binder. My lashes brush against a pair of lenses, framed. Erase. Drink. Start over. Realize that years of books cannot account for a moment of rest while the world is round with spinning.

Attend for a moment to the nature of glass. A familiar face drifts past the window among multitudes of shapes and lines. This face belongs to a boy in an apron. He serves muffins on Mondays. I care not for the caramel or lingering looks over counter-tops, grey. I would rather lay out the links in a line, watch them waiver. He shoulders a back-pack and his strides are clean. He wears no scarf as if winter is no big-deal while the lights are green and the grange, a slick sheet. I wonder if-

There is a song, a low roar  blooming through the buds in my ears. I want to keep it, hold it in my hands while warmth seeps through ceramic.

Tonight the Northern Lights will dance across the sky. You can see them with your eyes, unblinking.

Read Full Post »

a letter to a young poet

Last night I dreamt I was on a train pulling into a station inside a moon-mountain. There was a man sitting across from me. I did not know his face. I remember his mouth moving, but his words drowned in a deafening horn.
Someone was collecting stamps or tickets, trading them for wrist-watches. My wrist was bare and my pockets, brittle.
There was a light tapping on my shoulder and, when the collector came, I found that I had nothing to spare. So I said to him, “You can take anything but my lungs.”
He said nothing and merely stood there, gaping. Then there was a long, sweeping intake of breath before the doors slid open. And I awoke in my bed at three in the morning with my throat parched. The sheets tangled around my legs.
I took a moment before turning on the lamp to hear the soft click of the switch. I watched the light become a halo in the corner around a web woven with intricate strokes.
But I couldn’t go back to sleep because I wasn’t ready to visit the moon or be a rose under so many eyelids.

Read Full Post »

standing, still

I want to be a tree in winter
still-standing.
With lights wrapped around me
and my branches
coated-crystal.

Read Full Post »

carbon copy

Diane tests the water with two fingers under the tap.
Cyclone-spiral down silver-subdivision.

Jack’s breath prints spider-stars across kitchen-window, and the kettle is bloated, belly-full.

Diane wants to forget the froth of party-politics and teeters on rail-way-tracks. Her shoulders are stiff. She wonders if Atlas was ever mindful of the weight.

Did he ever wish to strip the Earth, peel skin off crust and core, bury his hand in river-beds to cool tendons, sore? But, oh, how Atlas must have loved Earth to bear her beating heart, heavy.

How hard it is to love Earth still while time-travels, swiftly.

Diane reaches for a glass. It glistens under the water. Baptismal. She fills it and drinks-deeply.

Read Full Post »