Good to see you!
My favorite here is 12, City Park. That one can now also be found in the standalone section.
Also new this month are 4 posts on the Musings page! I know, I was surprised too. It's a talky time to be alive!
The numbers are numbers, not dates.
If you have something constructive to say about any of the pieces here:
17 — Cool
I settle on one foot
like the iron oak. The other.
A mess of rafters groaning
in the careful cool. We do
all we can, then rest
with both hands at one
murmured breath rising.
16 — My kitchen
Slowly, now, let the green of you meet
this small sun. From the car, we're all
filled-around by the nub chalk
of a dusk finally turned its back.
I could take
or leave a hot meal.
You're muttering and I'm
listening. Blind potter,
draughtsman. Standing by
with a scalpel. Lend me the legs
in this your life.
15 — Sunday
Clicatch. Heat. The minnows throw
their bodies like stones. There.
There. The road ends in a postcard,
perfect like too bright. Clean,
armed - back, ankle, gums. I feel
the noise in your skin like it's mine.
We laugh too loud for the too-bright
world. The least we can do.
14 — The Robin
My neighbor is smoking and the smoke
takes my wrists and moves my hands.
A comfort, a static joined static.
The father of my girlhood calls, says
don't look, there's a mouse,
it's all fucked up.
I look. It's all fucked up.
Above my head, a clipped
gray broken by the robin.
13 — With feeling.
Blossoms drag like scythes
on the plate glass. My gaze
a buffed stone on impact -
a comical POOF, a wall of
white so
white it's some blue. Tell me
the story again. With feeling.
12 — City Park
The paint smacks and globs,
seething mad under droplets of
solvent. A life made of knowing
glances up and scatters. Me
and all I can say for sure. You
and all that you are, all
that you hold. Ballpoint in your
teeth, six pins in mine.
Night falls on the street and the
shadows twist with muscle.
Sinew. The raw hold of a charge
you could wind and
stitch with. What else? We break
to a sprint. Thrown
to the grass, we feel every blade.
A low slope and the smokeprint sky.
11 — Rockfoot
I flatten to the glass.
I flicker to sleep.
The green waves rise by stories -
suspended, humming. My skin drinks
the limewash wind, pulling and working
me into me. The same three songs
from the top. The same 60 bends,
a little too fast. Voices noting
my silence say love you.
I say love you. Simple
scene, an old one. Cellular.
As written and nothing more
and nothing less.
10 — bloodied
how I break / the ink dark water
my shallow breath a betrayal in
opal under the lights // though I swim
with all I have / I grow tired I rest
bloodied I sink / bloodied
I renew my pace / bloodied
I watch the watcher I become
the skull and both eyes
09 — Calcite
The gray chill weeps. Folds
my body to its side. Weaker
now, never weaker, I hold your
face with both hands and
my fingers blister. In calcite
we coffer so many secrets.
08 — Granite
Severity in wire, glass
beads by the pound. Pliers
and fingernails: give me your
best. Your best, and I'll give you mine.
We join the moss, we soften to
the rock face. There, they will say,
were their hands.
Nose bone, femur.
A few ribs.
07 — Fields of them
Bells, braided
with tiger cowries,
fall endlessly against
the glass. Keeping
my balance, I lose
your shape in the mist.
For space you leave bluebells.
Fields of them, then baskets.
06 — Chevy C10
From the flatbed, an explosion
of ribbons. Hopelessly bright and
whistling off big spools. I realize now
I can smell my mother's house.
Popcorn, detergent. Something
like long silence. Not a bad one.
05 — Spring!
My fingers make planted rivets
of green suede. Soy beans this time,
a low plant in the earth - humble.
Anonymous in our sweet
breads, our gravy. Here
it makes one striking better half
of the gray sky - backlit as anything,
it holds you in ten digits,
tight. You weakly lift your head.
Smile. Flattering, the way
it loves you still and still, greater
by the moment. With dirt
in every crease
and line and in its hair.
Breathless with winged things.
04 — Agents
The wild turkeys squabb
le, dumb, blinking big ey
es. One beak to one nec
k and it's all mess of clan
ging swords. Melt around
the blow, bird. Be the liqu
id earth around the migh
ty trunks of powerlines. C
oncrete and steel. Munici
pal business. Humming, b
lurry, a full house and they
're calling for blood - oce
an in the the TJ Maxx seas
hell #40331. Sit for a while
and you'll see. The beetles
wake at once, agents of a
web over the world. Like th
e turkeys, like polymer mis
hmash painted this way n
ow and that way now, the
red wire or the blue.
03 — sweat
big dog toothless
in sleep / tread no help
on the ice / men pay
for their blood forgetting
a life is only ever
the sweat in the drain
the sand / the muck / the hands
of the trees / the ordered
fog of a half-sleep / the few
who answer the phone / a blind
spinning slower now
02 — Alien
What marks
the right thing calling?
Sweet oil, branch of fir?
A thousand
years watches me
perched in the kitchen
crook. Brow
furrowed, I smooth your hair.
Little thing, little thing.
A thousand
years, a thousand.
Rightness. Goodness.
An iron will and all
32 teeth.
01 — Blink
A hand on my shoulder.
Settle, tune in.
A seagull, so far from the sea, so choosy
with its lampposts. Wrong Way Turn Around
sign tipping
off the edge of a world now
watery blur at interstate speed.
A mother tells me
about the songs her boys sing
at bedtime. Throws her head back to laugh.
I sprout white feathers, my limbs changed
for talons. Woman, the symbol.
Woman, the organism.
This strange, big thing - what, love?
Noun, verb. Tidy proxy
word for fear of God, for being and being,
for the brightness that begets being.
Behind the static, so many
eyes blinking
loud, squeaky cartoon blinks. Still
in me: the child who just thought
someone should look back.