The waves speak of the ocean’s mystery You play flute beneath the ceiling of stars So close to Heaven on the lifeguard’s chair When I with my soft voice sing harmony I gather shells and stones with pretty scars And you touch nothing else but my long hair. Even now I hold dear this memory Of holding hands and climbing the sand bar The thermos of hot Ovaltine we share Your love for Vivaldi and Debussy. Perhaps one day you will read this memoir I hoped to find you but did not kn

Her beauty must be managed with a glove For beauty is a thing she’s guilty of Blooming without a mirror in her hand Something the rose can never understand Whose beauty shares a garden with the thorn For truly its purity will be torn Since it is prone to the ethereal As she is prone to the ephemeral.

Impatient to be twelve at eleven The dawn of puberty still unbroken That maiden morning of adolescence Marking the passage of all innocence With flowers pressed inside a diary The pages turned to repeatedly A name penciled, a crayon valentine The word “forever” with an underline A cut-out heart, the pictures jotted on Before when someone realized she was gone When she was tricked into a stranger’s car Terrified when it sped upon the tar And stopped abruptly in the wilderness

At dawn I think about a cup of tea Like others I am alert to the sound Of traffic, and if I open my eyes And if I join the living finally If conscious of the potential around I might look for a good reason to rise But I will struggle with this probably Reluctantly my feet will find the ground And find the kitchen when the kettle cries.

I stood before her door not knowing why And yet I bothered its tranquility By knocking, unable to pass it by Unsure someone like her would welcome me Into her world, into her own household Or if she was not there to let me in. I turned away, sensitive to the cold Self-conscious of the color of my skin Her neighbors regarded with suspicion. Then I prepared for anger but not joy Nor tears welling at first recognition Nor the love bitterness did not destroy Nor flicker of thanks

Let your touch be as a feather A whisper of velvet The barest whisp But let it not be more than that The stir be gentle, not as an offense For I will have no more Then the softest velour; Delicacy is my defense Against the texture of burlap Its strategy too rough When silk would be enough To brush against. And the rude slap of coarseness Assaulting my skin Serving to irritate My nerves to punctuate With the cruel end of a pin Is not welcome. But a caress Can soothe, and just

She raised the scissors to cut off her braid Having grown too old for girlish ways Black circles lay beneath her vacant gaze She paid for all of this, for all she paid Cupping her hands to drink the brutal brew And speaks to no one of this or the stain A secret’s weight carried along the chain Of years. She does not know and never knew The others nodding hello in the street How can they not see her for what she is Not recognize her for the thing she is Never notice though so

A filly takes an apple through the gate Though it is rotting and riddled with worm It makes no difference if the flesh is firm She snorts and whinnies picking up her gait When her boy holds out another to eat And no harness can tame her happiness Having a boy and apple to possess For one is good and the other is sweet.

Kneeling there as tears fall across her cheek Knowing this is different from hide and seek When who she sees is familiar yet strange And that for now on everything will change Wanting her Nana to open her eyes Instead remembering everyone dies But nothing can repair her broken heart. She wants to say something afraid to start Whispering with her eyes closed, “I need you” Before her mother walked her to the pew Having seen the cross Nana never wore Imagining her walking throug

The muffled roar of midnight closing in On the rooftop where a murder of crows Congregate, her top is wet, her skin Sticks to the sheet, the tangling bed clothes Strangling claustrophobia, the heat’s Chattering, wide awake, the constant hum Of audible emptiness in the streets A sharp pitch and the banging of a drum The pulse of her heart in the static night When she is alone with no one to call Under the monotony of moonlight Glowing coldly like a fluorescent ball.

No reason to hide This unbodied bride Too airy for breath Undying for death As gravity fails Against weightless veils And force has no hand Nor fire a brand To mangle or mark With muscle or spark.

A lamb as innocent as it is pure A burst of air and through an open door Emerging from sweet pastures of a dream And surging forth upon a rapid stream The lamb to clothe with these I give to you Praying that what I promised will come true For you to sing by heart the songs you know The ones I sang to you so long ago When I slept lightly by your little bed My milk flowed as my fingers brushed your head Together this way we fell fast asleep The circle of my arms for you to keep

I find a flower among weeds Going no further than I should The fear of hurting it exceeds The carelessness of childhood Having sacrificed the desire To pluck a blossom for its scent So delicate amid the briar Its sweet perfume to early spent. How can I call this flower mine? Alone I see its loveliness Tucked in beside a dandelion Reflecting my own loneliness.

Accepting finally he needs a cane He will use it however with disdain His face has seen better days, now he’s pale Although he has his mind his health will fail. But here stirring black coffee with a spoon He drinks it sober in the afternoon Saving the sugar for a bitter day He lives with pain.  Is there another way? He takes his dinner with a grain of salt Feeling his age as if it were his fault.

A Faberge egg on its pedestal So intricate a beauty. I felt safe And you had a weakness for any waif Like me, poetic, maybe radical. No not radical but the rage you saw Stuck in grid-lock in a way appealing Unique unlike the others in this wing A girl whose portrait you might like to draw. Ease into me slowly… slowly… slowly. You see I punish myself for your crime I blamed myself for what happened that time. (I do not speak of this so easily) Will not, do not. I do not want

A family photo curling in the flame I laid it on the pit to light the fire For kindle took apart the picture frame Separating the wood from the wire The old nails hammered still into the wall With the persistent shadows hanging there. No matter from which side I saw it all From sitting on the top or bottom stair I saw it even when my eyes were closed I saw it as it perished in the flash I saw when my emotions were exposed The only thing to rescue from the ash.

The rugged exterior of a brick Before it aged and was covered in moss The lichen as it cloaks a wooden stick Lies hidden and is never run across Matted by rotting leaves in the wetland Which carpets sunken ground where the deer trot Observed by none, untouched by human hand Where not one voice has spoken in this spot. Falling rocks dropping lightly where they rest Among creatures left to their own caprice Alive with every effort they invest And do not want more from the unive

The wolf desires a taste of innocence He seeks what all of nature searches for Yet death is of such little consequence But to the belly holds a great allure. A spirit speaks with deeper eloquence Breaking over the waves of water there The strident wind is loud like howling The vacant glance, the disembodied stare From that hunger a stomach growling A cold sweat and relentless shivering An eye more like a hollow than a stream A heart more like a surrendered canoe Set on a bank

The flecked blue stone I threw into the snow Pulled off my finger one forsaken night Snowflakes circled pristine and sugar white The frozen lake so many miles below And traffic lights so many miles behind. I sped through them regardless of their hue Even the light of moon when it withdrew Like a sealed promise that had not been signed When laughter bubbled more like a champagne But there were crows that circled overhead My only hope found in the water dead By some monster tha

ds  Hovering near my red geraniums The ruby-throated with its dizzy wings Seeks pollen for any meager income That can be harvested.  Now the air sings With many voices.  Then some eccentric Parks by the curb and gets out of his truck. He sees my birdfeeders.  I said “A duck, A green mallard waddled over to pick Up bird seed like other ground feeders. First time ever.”  “No way.”  “A first for me.” “Say, do you get a lot of hummingbirds?” “No. One or two.”  “Me, I get too many