disposition

Everyone likes me cheery.
They suggest a ponytail
for some bounce and sass.
I comply. I like me cheery, too.
And I assure you, I’m a fool
for constellations, ice cold beer.
and the unfailing confection
of a Texas sunset to sweeten
the ending of the day.

But, let me have my spider’s den-
a darkened doorway
or a rusty bin
where I might give way
to my briary birthright of desire.
And when I am lost in words-
lost as a ragged sail in a hurricane,
oh, I am lost, I know,
in that spiral of chaos
and calm- let me be.

Never think I do not see
the vista unfurled
at my fingertips,
though my heart still beats
like the wings of some black bird,
wild and wanting sky.

Frida

Frankly

These things begin so slyly.
I felt in my walk first.
Seems I sashayed to the mailbox,
strolled like someone in a blue peignoir,
thirty yards of French silk velvet
heavily trimmed in black fox fur.
The smell of magnolias weighted the air
somehow conjured from cedars and fresh cut Bermuda.

I wanted to be laced up, tight and slender,
and sit on the porch I did not have,
surrounded by prissy men.
I would envy their soft hands,
their lazy, syrupy voices that pooled
in my head, warm and numbing.
Later the curtains began to look like frocks.
As I yanked them down
I smelled the inevitable perfume
of a city on fire.

my fairy book

I am making an altered book about birds and fairies. It is so fun to work on this. Makes me want a bird...
and a fairy.

Miller's Cove

I am at the house by the lake;
the little cedar house
John’s grandpa built.
You remember, don’t you?
There are those shutters
with stars cut out
and the boathouse still has bees.
I have been here for eight days
and have spoken to no one
save the man at Cooper’s store.
On the first day I told him
you might be coming;
told him not to worry
if a strange car was parked
in the drive- that it was you,
and I’d be fine.

Every morning I have seen an owl.
He sits on the same branch
and looks down towards the water.
I have watched the dragonflies
and seen the sun disappear behind the pines.
I’ve sat on this porch
and imagined a hundred things
to say to you; a thousand ways
to touch you.

I know you’re not coming,
though it felt so fine
to say out loud that I thought you might.
To say your name
to a stranger in the daylight
was the sweetest thing
to cross my lips in so long.

Summer’s almost here.
The rowboats have been painted
The water is warm now.
Soon I will go and leave behind
a perfect silence
and even the woods will forget
the song of your name.

archaeology

I squat amid the ruins of a burnt house
and finger the charred earth,
hoping to uncover some flowered shard,
a teacup handle, a rusty hinge,
wanting nothing new or bright or brilliant-
only the commonest thing.

My knees are soiled
and the light weakens
towards the western rise.
Shadows embellish the ground
and I sift until you call me.
Your voice lifts me to my feet.
I cross the brambled hill
where we saw the fox one time,
brindled flanks disappearing
into cedars and shade.
We were too astonished to speak,
the moment folded in a pocket,
a love letter to carry into battle.

When I reach the ridge
there is a yielding wind
and a sloping darkness
that rises to take me
with the tenderness of sleep.
When I see you at last,
a smudge of violet
against a closed curtain of sky,
you fill my hands with relics.

for Lent

Oh, give me some sugar,
something nectared and soft,
unforgettably sweet
to break this long fast.
This season of denial endures
and I fear I may starve.
Please, a kiss
to melt in my mouth.
I will close my eyes
and savor what I have renounced.

the theory of aspiration

I have studied lift and thrust,
turbulence and velocity.
Like a Jesuit I have been devoted,
like DaVinci, entranced.
I have learned that I must hollow
each and every bone,
scrape away the marrow,
grow wings of steel or down.
Then when I’m abandoned
in the place where science bows-
there is where the fetters fall
and the currency is faith.
I will circle, seek the updraft
that will breathe beneath my wings
and lift me far beyond
these silvery feathers that I rain.

April

Pink candy sunset-
unreliable confection.
Crisp winds nettle,
snatch papers,
whip hair like tethered bees.
Fragile green trembles
on black brocade.
Mockingbird song at three a.m.
Me with one foot in ice
and the other intent
on the emerald heather.