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