DOMINOES

this is the season of nesting.
listless memory recalling the summer peach
that is the back of your neck. a sweet nectar
as you roll on the couch in the sunlight, I am left to
catch whiffs of the perfume-
signs of bruising, already.

this is the season of inarguable difference.
shadows long on the wall, amid storms swelling I
deconstruct like a Maryoshka doll. Breaking down
into smaller and smaller versions of myself.
becoming a lesser, and lesser woman.

this is the time for us now.
blanched, poached, bloated, we
form imperceptible knots in the string binding us. left unnoticed
until the need to tug hard,
a hail mary
these minuscule knots tied before,
now ripping at the seams.

PEANUT BUTTER

sour stomach
thoughts of
peanut butter and
banana toast,
the smell is sickening.
thick honey in-between my fingers, teeth
life is nauseating.

YOU DO IT VERY GRACEFULLY

cinnamon
rose buds
honey
toothy smile
florescent lights
you:
      doing hat tricks
      eating subway sandwiches that drip onto the table
      wearing more layers than I thought possible
me:
      reminding myself to look up, talk to you
      low bun
      feeling antsy beyond belief.

NEEDLES AND PINS

a change of plans
a swift 
strike of the hand and everything
smells all salt/butter/burning garlic.

I've  potted and
re-potted
and re-re-potted
every plant in this house only to
notice how the damned roots just
keep growing deeper.

(a list of things to do:
fix backpack
finish library books
clean mold off window
turn down the tea kettle)

I ask my mother
my father
my sister
but in the end it
was my brother who told me the truth.

SECOND THOUGHTS

i
do
not
know
is this "Good"?

I can not wait forever, flightless bird.

SSB

there was a day

we rose with the song birds and
all this crystal light, refracting, illuminating, multiplying. It was a gentle space
to be alive. A
one room solace with a thinning Persian rug
on the floor and an entire wall of windows
to show soft winds and ghost cats
tap tapping to be let in.
you had never heard me sound
so loud
wolf howls and tightly shut eyes scared off the approaching deer. There was
one gas light set to burn low
your black cherry eyes, thick hair smoothed behind your ears. I had
midnight visions of you as aged and grey
silver on your fingers and
how fast this present turns it's belly
to decompose with all other matter, so ripe.
so long ago, we
peeked through the red cedar and avowed
to keep
what felt so precious. In those four walls we
asked questions of crystals anchored to chain
whispering truths out of the chimney to commune
with who knows what.
I never would have thought,
such growth as ours would have come
from such silence as this

A FEEDING

My own gristle and flesh,

these drums and aches create knots

thick and twined into my blood, my muscles, my skin barely

masks them all.

to accept, with grace and humility-

if only i could be so gallant! Instead, this beast

unfurled

uncouth

great lout, my heart.

(Of which you have swallowed in almost it’s entirety

i want to rip it from your teeth, your

oiled throat run dry but i profess:

I will fall soft for you again

as a brush dipped in water,

or every morning before

it has been witnessed by the human eye.

Always, I will rush to fill the absence

so weighted

it crushes every spark

every attempt to breathe

in the face of you, impossible and

never ending. )

Oh heart, so clumsy and earnest

it is nigh time to unwind.

fruited in my mind and

spoken by my sordid guts, the truth is that

It would be remiss of me to have offered you one solemn prayer

of hope that

you ever had a chance at success.

to wax and wane

We have infinite opportunity
to connect on the level of my
primordial heart. My
animal body

somewhere else, eyes sting from the
baths of crushed mustard
                              anise seed, He
cries out
for this rock rose, will open as
my legs my throat

our connection  expands, I am all
colours. All dust. Like you

have your hands
rest lightly on the valley that is
the small of my back
                              my luscious back,  rolling
like hill crests
of a coniferous forest, pine cones
all littered about.

definition

     glow melted
gold through the
trees this thick amber
honey sun dripping off
the hemlock is catching
my eye the way my hips
move like this
and that
and you notice
     there is that seal pup who
has bobbed his head and readjusted
his luscious body to
match the rhythm of our shifts
on bald rock face or
so it feels but maybe that
is a selfish thought.
    the puckering scent of
white vinegar as it boils
to make
pickles for us to eat standing late
at night on one foot with the fridge
door wide open and giggling i
have already created this narrative, please
excuse
me and this eye stinging smell
    i did not quite know what was next as
we hiked up the trails strewn with
cedar boughs and
took in the moisture from every shade
of moss as it soaked into my socks
I noticed the ripped apart wings of
some seagull who transgressed in
the path of some lucky eagle (we saw eight)
(maybe nine)
aren't we all sort of this
seagull?
I crouch and try
not to pee on my shoe and notice how that
sweet 5pm light
makes
all time before it evanesce.

eye-oh

perched on my heels

sitting in the yellow corner of
someone else's kitchen I'll find
quiet moments to look at your teeth
assess your outfit
chopped visions like
when we were both 14 but at least
six years apart. Why
is every one who is 21
sweeping in to the world with shoulders
straight and teeth so white. I
will continue to assess this SEXTROLOGY
book and
scrape the last noodles off
of a thick take-out plate oh and
you have really nice skin, i
notice. is everyone else noticing
my lack of and someone else is
likely roosting down for bed, feeling so
proud of their tiny daughter who is
not this daughter
born of colliding blood and a formed double helix
we can barely see each other now
through two door frames,
it is just the slight curve of your small foot
and perfect jeans. you sit to finish the puzzle
someone else laid out on their dining room table
long before,
either of us dared to
exist on this night

Per

eager, quick fingers.
we ran off to the woodshed-
to hunt for our needs.
//
four shy, bovine eyes
chart out a course of action
we breathe deep. Move close.
//
mouths sweet and clumsy.
dropped like the stone of a fruit,
tongues root and blossom.

IN MY THIRD YEAR OF BEING A ZOMBIE

i know something about hospitals.

dry eyes, tight throat. picking at my cuticles.

I have fear every time i wake up and see a missed call

or text message on my phone. 
“you have to come down on the first bus” “can you fly out there?” 
“Tell work it’s a family emergency” 
All the headaches.

I have body pains like boa constrictors

in my shoulders shifting and squeezing

all the muscles. I have been trying to notice, how my body defaults to tense.

do you know? how many times in a day

I roll my shoulders back, take a deep breath. I was not breathing before

this. I didn't used to be destroyed.

I walk around with my mind in hospitals.

knives that cut through tissue of infants. Removing bones. Little limp bodies on metal tables. Pale faces

look at you like you betrayed them. Too young to know it’s to save their lives. Once,

we spent days getting excited about going on an airplane

only to have her two year old body shake with fury, scream. 
“i’ve been tricked” 
because

the stale glow of the airport lights are too similar

to the hospital’s.

I can speak of

straps that hold the wrists of grown men. Panicking. blood boiling. and doctors who
“won’t give that junkie any post-op pain killers.” I walk in the room, look in his eyes.Gaze past the new stitches and

cotton mouth

to see someone with my flesh and my bones. It is only that his brain

failed him so gallantly. but his heart

still beats as lovingly as always.

I know long rides on the bus. And my face pressed on the cold glass. somber trips to

see people on the edge.

My phone rang today.

My granny.

curtains of blood rushing out of her face and

“her heart”

and

“failure”

and

I already start planning how to tell work it’s

“a family emergency”.

I consider, what it means to feel stress.
What do you believe a crisis is? 
What is enough to make you cry?

I have crippled myself, through hospitals.

I would never.

i can not.

i do.

I am.

i am so angry.

I am so angry.

I am so angry.

I AM NOT A BEAR

how earnestly

we sew. tight

stitches traversing up

where the spine would have been.

inside this skin it is

clotted, hot blood of some other animal.

how embarrassing to be caught

wearing another's fur.

despite the multitude of

dense layers of hair,

it all just feels so threadbare.

FREETRAPPER

they're born
strong head, narrow hipped
from dense black soil and
mineral deposits
hot silver, crusted
rock debris

reminiscent of thick pelts
red skies
morning dew
dark pools.
with a cracked pepper zeal
they come forth
a new
anew.

to form soft tendrils of
liberated
unfurling,
into
snaked roots

and wild depth,
of which we know no bounds.