our shadows straggle, lagging
on every brick and twig as
we chase gold down
graying streets
*
i couldn't say
how bodies gasp
how goosebumps glaze thighs
or how the mind, blind
earthworm, writhes and
crawls for rain
or how the skin explodes -
don't ask me to explain.
*
September (quiet autumn things)
With autumn, I'm a quiet thing,
the skirt of fog trailing as
engines whine alive. Go find me
among the grinning burs, restless
with some tale of me; in
cyclones of dust; my kiss
on every balmy blade of grass and
blushing leaf.
One day I'll shake the bones out of these trees.
I know that you want more from me.
But today I watch the red sun
between seams of rain clouds, curled
up in some spot of warmth,
a quiet thing with autumn - let me sleep.
*
do the sweetest thing
love me like a seed a blighted
sun can nourish too; see that
I'll bloom and bloom and
bloom
*
09152016
girlhood's an
egg that binds
flailing baby
limbs. Ladies
emerging all air and
silk feathers,
remember, remember,
the grunt blunt in
you, your hairy back, your
knuckles only sinking
on this soft beach.
*
2010
follow the gray path
someday to where the
copper-topped clock
ticks; sit
on a gargoyle's tongue
once your lungs have
gargled out and
dried
but this moment, like a drop
of rain, runs and runs
down hills and out
past streetlights
and the sun - go there for now.
*
muse
Want me, explode me. Splatter my bones
on museum walls. Worship me -
lips, rosebuds never blooming; eyes, winter
sky diamonds. Never know me, but
speak of me, dream of me, embalm me
like the "i" in "extraordinary" - a syllable you
swallow to make it work - and call it love.
*
last of summer
she straggles in dapples
of sun across cold fields
dragging her feet, waiting
to meet southbound
mallards.
I'm a twitch
of rage, a pinch
of anger, puckered
like a volcano, erupting
a moment or two.
*
periods (ongoing)
bent double, I birth
islands floating
red across the warm
bath water
twisting papaya
threads; a split
and gutted fruit
days like a single moaning
wave pass me, nudging
i swallow an ocean this way, gulp gulp
*
092616
yellow evening wedging
into the gloom - a lemon slice,
hints of light this heavy
autumn day
