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.