that's mrs. mediocrity to you

years ago
i planted two poplar trees
side by side
out front
in the corner of the yard

and one grew taller than the other
larger
thicker
stronger

and i feel like that’s probably
a metaphor for something
or at least it should be

but all i see are trees
and words about trees
stamped across the sky
in a tangle
of branches

all the meaning i prescribe
comes from within
me
or the trees
and what i choose to name
the one on the left

my cat
can zoom straight up the trunk
leaving scratches
and cheshire grin
in a weathered trunk
time map

but i like to sit
beneath the canopy
and listen
to stories
told by dancing
flicker leaves
in the shade
of yesterday’s
summer

.

.

.

it was your dream and it shouldn’t
have been in my head but there it was
all memory and miniseries
claiming sleep in a gold rush
of measure

the audience laughed when i landed
and i thought perhaps i was dead
but you took my hand and lifted
til i stood three feet taller
than the mountain you sang
and could see each grey hair
on your head

in the hallway air-brushed footsteps
creaked out their endless
time-frame pattern
step here miss there hush now
tiptoe past the door of dragon

and the wind came howling
through the crack
in my window glass scar
left behind on a night when i dreamt
of forgetting and clambered to follow
the pale scratched trail
of prints in the snow beneath me

.

.

.

those were the words you left on the counter
next to the cat food and two bananas gone too far ripe
the kind just waiting for someone to make an effort
but that takes foresight and a dash of clarity and instead
you wrote a sentence on a red-stained slip of paper
more resignation than wish
or at least
acceptance

already i know what my answer will be
but i like the look of empty space
the box of possibility left unlined
in the corner of a kitchen meant for tea
and forgotten pots boiling over

in the corner i write corrosion
in pencil small enough
to be practically invisible

just before i flip the page to map out another list
half-filled with crisp greens and purple edges
in the shapes we’ll throw away

and here i sit, waiting for something i’ll never have and
my mind keeps screaming about wasted time
and the words are all stacked in the corner
neat as a pile of laundry
and my heart is always racing
even though
there’s no time to begin

four walls and one window and i am cold
but never frozen and two crows just flew by
to remind me of balance

as the sun pokes it way through a cross hatched horizon
painting colors with a brush of no hurry

spinning yarn for another day’s sweater

i found an arrow on the floor
three days ago
and just left it there

pointing southwest

it didn’t seem to be meant
for me

.

.

.

they say lightning never strikes the same place twice
but what if white light wakes you up every morning
and sometimes it thunders in the dead cave of winter

but the moon
rises up through the trees
even when frozen

and silt settles on everything
after a flood
concealing what lies
beneath a smooth surface

and magic makes no sense
but neither does reality

the miracle is that any tree survives

holding out bare branches
in forever expectation
of life going on

just the way it does

even uprooted

even split wide open

even silenced by
a lack

of wind

.

.

.

it all hangs in the balance

of what we’re never quite sure

and color leaks
through everything

touching edges
still hoping
for the grey of silence

heartache rolls round
in great waves of destruction

i bleed
you bleed
we all bleed

and you can’t staunch the flow
of life
with an easy off bandage

any more
than you can breathe
when the air
fills with constants

this chair
that tree
a quick flash of smile

memories are never
sincere

nostalgia
always wears
the wrong dress
for the occasion

but underneath
the pulsing river
flows on

the currency of friction
driving us
forward

.

.

.

some days you have to cut off a limb
just to force new growth

prune out the broken bits and
wait for them to form fresh skin

cover old wounds
and choose the right spot
for opening veins

none of it makes you less whole

less beautiful

less valuable

your resilience is your strength

gathering force from every

misstep

mistook

wear your scars like a badge
of adornment

reach for the sky
with wide open arms

the stars will fall into
your humble embrace

and you will refuse
to hold them

their light on your skin
is always
enough

and release is the salve
of time’s flight

.

.

.

.

a tunnel of words
brambled tight and bunched pretty
blocking the straight line
shortest path

and isn’t that always the way

flight holding up
a mirror
of freedom

while the simple branch

extended as an offering
of comfort

goes unnoticed

these wings
always itching to soar

defying the gravity
of cracked calloused
talon

weaving labyrinth and lace
into a ripe ruffled tapestry
of circuitous
reflection

.

.

.

the path is predetermined by the seed and the soil
and climate’s complete lack of benevolence

a straight line leads only to infinity
and so we are faced with sharp corners

zigs that zag through uncut forest
fallow field
the vagary of mountain

and you can look for the signs

proof of possibility

your only reward for getting it right

but just this morning
one lone leaf was pointing at orion
and tomorrow
it will tumble
through wet sky

.

.

.

the color of sky in anchorage at midnight
the eyes of a girl i never quite met
the forgotten sound of my mother’s voice

none of it was gravity enough
to hold me in place
and so i wandered among you
straddling two worlds on the razor’s edge
of my own incomplete sanity

i fell often, cut and bleeding
through the fabric of a shroud
no one else could see

this wasn’t my decision
it was my destiny
and no amount of fighting
kept me whole

the whisper howl of the wind in a pine dressed forest
the warm slide of good whiskey down a life-parched throat
the crackle of a fire lighting words on a page

i was cold and silent night
played loud on the radio
in a room arranged to be
my last companion

i grew up in a house
the color of empty
raised by ghosts of worn out intention

i laughed like a child
until i was thirty
and then i started leaving in a circle of return
all the things i never had
packed into tattered pockets

the call of a loon on a star scattered lake
the warmth on my skin of a sun gone to silver
the weightless cry of a hawk soaring through hunger

one saved letter pressed tight
against the thump
of my own flawed heart

proof of existence
in a shadow
shaped by please

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Linking in over at dVersePoets for Poetics today,
where Grace has us writing poems from the perspective of the dead.

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