devotion is a curious spring
rippling up through time and history
a veil
of interlaced attempt and failure
stubborn reveal
bruised experience
hope
at the bottom of a well named fortitude
drawn up
in a broken-rope bucket
swinging and splashing
despair
on walls built of mud and stone
there is always growth
there is always frustration
there is always
beginning
born
of defeat
.
.
.
Now that March
has put some distance between us
February
I can see you didn’t mean
to be cruel, exactly
and April still holds sway
after all
you managed to hand us
an extra twenty-four hours
pretending it was gift
and not correction
but it was another terse-curt day
just like all your bitter
Napoleonic efforts
and don’t think
this means your dark laughter
has suddenly become okay
.
.
.
talisman of time
unbreakable memory
society’s weapon
you can always
refuse to choose but
you will be followed
return to the mountain
live with rubble
carve your freedom
.
.
.
sitting shoulder to shoulder on on earth’s last boulder
remembering things we thought she said and forgetting
the way it rained on the night we learned
forgiveness.
in a drawer upstairs lies a box full of words
mine, not yours, his, not hers, lined with the echo
of unspoken progress. we never stopped moving
and thought shelter
was hidden in a shadow somewhere deep
beneath the ocean of your bed. i never asked to be held
and the waves kept breaking, even after the whisper:
you won’t drown.
.
.
.
.
we all play the fool
for a sky
fixed with one blue chance
.
.
.
.
this is not a poem and i am not my shadow
the wall is solid but the light is not,
yet you cannot feel the difference
there is no baby bird begging for food
beneath a dark cloud
in a pot full of tulips
perhaps there are no tulips
perhaps where i see purple you see green
perhaps this is skin and not plaster
there are no certainties
on this day
in this sun
or this room
with ghost shapes
dancing
but this is not a poem and
therefore none
are necessary
.
.
.
There are so many way in this life to have your heart broken,
so many days that feel like a too-hard struggle
in a battle already lost.
And yet
the world keeps spinning,
the babies keep smiling,
the flowers keep blooming,
the birds keep singing.
If perception is everything,
reflection is nothing.
A mirage of reality.
The bowl in my hand is clear glass and heavy.
What I see is the flame of forgiveness.
A vessel, cradling my heart.
Light, made tangible.
I hold on.
.
.
.
with the calm assurance of a master
beating back forest and flight and wildflower
in a dark cloud of apprehension
broken just enough to let the light through
one bird’s sky is another bird’s justice
and we call this fair on days when the sun shines
sitting in shadow with friends on either side
claiming balance
there’s a riptide of ballast claiming souls
and blooming has its own cost
one dime for pretty and two for compliance
while whispers of revolution father breezes
seeds will find a way to scatter
because we’re rooted in this circle
rose and thorn as proof of humor
bleeding through each window’s lock
.
.
.
Alice holds a doll in tired hands. I want
to smile each time I walk past,
say hello,
but tears always well and my mouth
turns down with the pain
of perpetual forecast.
“This feels like prison,”
someone whispers, and I
don’t think it was me but
old Joe’s eyes dart straight up to mine
and hold me with watery challenge,
though neither one of us knows
who spoke.
I don’t want to walk this gauntlet
disguised as hallway or write
these words
pretending to be poetry,
but here I am
scooting by with my purple sharpie
concealed in one hand.
Hope sits in my purse
next to car keys and kleenex and
crumpled receipts,
though I’ve paid for nothing
and everyone here
will be sure to testify.
Proof.
Of life and legs
moving,
always moving,
away
away
away
to places already been
and never seen.
Away.
.
.
.
