Accepting the task

The imprint of the dream, 

a sudden waking

a gasp

an “oh my god” and

you return

to the surface

from a who-knows-where and

a deep

dive

down

carrying now

a dancing fish.

Upon the glass, a reflection.

Through the glass, a being.

Beyond the glass-

a destination calling you forth.

Without end

begins

with accepting the task

that brought you here.

For the women in those photographs 

For the shes,

for the women who held in reserve everything but

what they betrayed in the fathoms of their eyes,

I dance for you,

let my laid-down hair fly

and skin sweat rivers

underarm and between thigh.

My laugh is the wild thing you withheld 

and the leap it was never safe

for you to take.

The salt this body gives up,

one gift I can give.

Carry me to where your bones rest,

I’ll bring the skull I’ve been handed

when calling guides from the directions.

You’ve yet to reach my dreams

but when you do

I know

your unpinned hair will be the least

of what you bring to night sleep.

Return

For those running running,

forget holding onto your hat-

that which has you trying to flee,

with its tangles and barbs and gashes and claws,

can outrun you

and knows every shortcut

to come out ahead

again

and again and again..

Face what you plead with silently

to go away

Return return

Hold onto your heart instead.

That intricate webbing of blood coursing its way

through all of you,

into toes, and eyelids, and knees.

Your heart, you,

the one constant partner-

wrap tender fingers around the unwanted.

For those working through terror,

For those tending to their rage,

For those who turn, who return-

Your life is yours.

After all

Look.

Beauty,

she encircles you,

informs and

works through you.

Forgetting,

while wringing hands and fighting lonely tears,

that you are in relationship

with every stone you stumble on in chance meeting,

the dusty path that hugs your shoes,

the doves sweeping low overhead,

the desk that absorbs each press of your pen,

the books whose pages capture your breath,

the ceiling that gathers searching late-night stares,

the chipped cup,

its divot a place your tongue seeks,

socks he wore, but just the once,

a scarf she knit you, knowing full-well your love of the yarn,

and the animal responsible for it,

that patch on your shin that showed up, what, a decade ago now?,

let alone the scratch on the car that saved your life..

Forgetting builds a wasteland.

Come.

Sit.

Look around you.

We are, after all,

in this together.

For what it’s worth

Beneath skins and fur

I too rest in beauty

Let not a hand touch me

and still

I smile

For what it’s worth-

which, in a blink, may stack higher

than last year’s wages-

there is no fading value,

nor lost horizons

Forever always reaches towards us..

In a crisp pink angle of morning light

my heart is yours.

Turning the corner

Turning the corner,

two winds blow.

The old blasts my back,

picking up tacks and sharp-edged photographs 

along its path.

Those shes are afraid to let me go. 

Losing habits,

the groove-cut ways,

riles folks.

The wind in my face,

cold, fresh,

hasn’t yet warmed with the bodies of the unmet,

invites like a new swimming channel

whose water is clear, dark,

hugging smooth stone,

knowing well the course and direction

in which it takes me.

Turning the corner

dances my hair on end,

and has me falling forward

into invisible arms I must trust

to catch me.

Sunrise laughter

A sacred hunger grows

and tonight can’t possibly be the right time

to feed it,

but wine and the Hammond organ 

sure carve paths through

this wicked churchyard of a settlement.

Knock on my door in the morning,

my sight won’t be so cloudy

with delicious nostalgia,

and what sorrow erases clear vision

will lighten

with sunrise laughter.