Yesterday

I wore a white dress, a gift
from my mother that rippled and
curled in lissome longing for a lost
time. In my lap I traced a friendly
flower bud, aching with
acquaintance. It was possibly
a pattern from another dress I wore
when I was little
and my bitsy body simply
wiggled away from its woes. I have
the same haircut today as I did
when I was three. I don’t remember
fear from then. Now, it leaves my eyes red
and in all that white I must look to others
like a recreant rat.
Outside, erect against the wind
as my dress bracketed my body I pictured
my skin as flour. It was whispered away,
spread and stuck snugly in new
crevices, carried to unknown
locations. I knew then that feeling tremendous
and tiny are the same, and despite the parting
of my particles, I would always keep with me
those white gifts
from my mother.

For You

I want to write a
nimble poem,
a shiny web of
words, without fluff or
fanfare, grounded and
drifting like the sands
of the Earth.
I want my delicate
collection to touch you,
tenderly, strum you like
harp strings; cold fingers,
a tickling chill, then the
envelope of the
warmest chord.
I want this poem to
reveal everything and
nothing about me, to
hold answers that only
unveil a crisp curiosity
that pesters
with new questions.
I want the whisper
of this poem to graze,
hot on your skin and cool
in your core.
I want this poem to
love you, ask you, hear
you. This poem
is what I crave
for you.

To (K)no(w)

Limitless love frays in threaded shreds
of hope as cooler days blink wide to light and these
humid hideouts provide only sticky space
and damp regret.

Old messages rang familiar and weathered in
heavy heartbeats, while still
I stood that softening ground, bare,
and for much time now, unobstructed.
Save me the endless chorus, the souring
tune. Those sounds insult in tones more toxic
than any solitary silence.

Weary, this leaden chest has now allowed
itself a proper burial, sunk swiftly amid
snapping bubbles and heaved by unseen currents,
assigned forever to bereft barnacles and a
silted bed; inside, left locked the loss.