Bone to Bone
He claims two sides frame every story.
I count three, sometimes more,
believing in multiplicity,
threats concealed
but never
buried. A dust devil twists across the path.
What ascends, what dies?
Heat, ashes. A shadow’s flesh.
The earth, restraining all.
Knots
Who you are not seldom rises
beyond midnight’s
sum: one strand thrown over
another, looped through
and pulled taut, achieving
tension and a sour taste
at the back of your throat.
Everyone believes this
doesn’t bleed. I lock the
windows, draw the shades,
twist the cord. Even distracted,
nothing comes undone.
Nightmare Charm
To awaken undisturbed
or at all
I unclench my fist
freeing darkness.
How to transcribe the dead’s tune?
They float
within they float
within,
fear’s cascading grip transcending sleep
“Setting Fire to the Rose Garden” was my sixteenth poem for the Tupelo Press 30/30 Project last August. Many thanks to Lily June, who sponsored and provided the title.
Setting Fire to the Rose Garden
Each flower is a gift, a testament to
another morning’s arrival.
I watch you tend the firestar, its
mango-colored petals flirting with
the fire ’n’ ice’s elegant
red, accepting the pink indictment
of the flaming peace, and the
scarlet fireglow’s blush. You are like
a new sunlight crossing the day,
yet when I wave, a cloud passes over
you. Flames differ in this regard,
knowing they exist only as the product
of heat, oxidation and combustible
material, yet sharing their brief lives
with all who care to notice. I inhale
your dark thoughts, holding them
within, but later assemble my own
bouquet — wood chips and diesel
fuel, ground spinners, snakes,
strobes, rockets, candles, shells,
repeaters and a spark timer — and
plant it fondly in the garden. Oh,
how they’ll blossom before dawn’s
first touch. How they will shine.
Irretrievable
How we grieve the simplest
truths: we are
the scatterings,
relics of
the mind’s
erosions,
less than the sum
of our bodies. I cannot see
the word
but it smokes like
the color green
burning, but not of
flame, and once
the knife enters
you must avoid
its secretion
and peel the flesh
to reveal
what hides within:
the stem’s
purchase, pith,
seeds,
the irretrievable
shape
of a word
my lips cannot
form.
***
“Irretrievable” first appeared in a slightly different form in Vayavya, in December 2013.
O at the Edges 