Civil Twilight

The stories I tell myself hold up the sky. Fence posts wedge against the cumulus, the juniper or ash prop dusk on their shoulders, and from below we watch night approach. The shadows extend, long fingers, toward our hands - looped together where the ache lives between our palms. Nightfall finds us there first.   …

Fault Lines

In the afternoon light you tell me I am the first woman. I know better than to scan the surface. I see more than feel the seismic zone.   It is not just the west coast that need watch for shifty obliteration. My sternum speaks how deep the fault lines at the center; how this …

Offering

Conversations at menus are precious. What is this? Have I had muscles before? I’ll take that with the tiniest grain of salt. Please. Thank you. Very much. You’re a doll.   Behind the wall, far from our table. where framed horses race the Thames current, beside women who sit, umbrellas in hand, and count the …

Boundary

I am characterized, more often than not, by a vast network of waterways and bogs. The glacially carved landscape doesn’t know what to do with me.   Precambrian, my bedrock is covered by thin soil and boreal forests. I am a popular destination, a challenge for curious visitors.   But I am a protected area, …

Know

Anyone who says I know is a charlatan prone to all manner of extravagance, prone to undoing the tiniest knot for the sake of undoing.   But the questions are real and we never know for long without the inevitable Was I made for this? For this?   We are buried beneath the dead heap …

Fire Theory

In the diminished seventh I was the smallest digit - the pattern of my life: minor third, minor third, major third a jazzy emphasis on all my tonic spoils. But from a smoky bar I exacted revenge on all my mother was, on all I ever was, depressed away from the keys and took up …

Senseless

This morning I moved senselessly about: rearranged furniture into a pile, left a lampshade askew, squinted against the brilliant gray of cumulative weather, and pulled the windows open to let the winter air warm the house. Hopeless and haphazard   I felt my way through the walk-in closet where I opted for a nap shortly …

To Do List

When I am open, a flexible curvature; When I am generously unapologetic; When I rinse rhythms from my hair and rain vats of praise through the hollow of my spine - then and only then will I be a safe place to land.   When I become greater than the parts; When I find heroes …

Dust

I cram my mouth full of stars. The outer ring of Saturn tips a glance at my wild presumption. I refuse to dab away the drip at the corners of my grin - the evidence, the glitter, the dust. Inside, I float. Outside there is a blanket of darkness that hides a hitched brow or …

Muddlement

I forgot how to tie my shoes. And then I forgot how to wash my hands. At some point I forgot how to navigate a sidewalk in shoes or barefoot or from my knees - memory being the extravagance it is.   Saturday is windy, blows free these locks they make like falling - these …