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.

memories of damage #1

there are, no lights
when my eyes open. Except
the hushed blue
from atop the garage door.

clotted/throbbing/shifted
indigo leaks onto bone and
I immediately notice the jagged pain of
a metal
can, cracked in half
between two vertebrae.
I am showered in it's thick liquid;
warm sugar dripping down my neck.

they left!
panicked, before I was
re-submerged by the darkness.
unconscious.
nothing but August night air hitting the train tracks and
coyote calls around me.
body pressed to concrete
bike left untamed.

I remember the view.
railings of the loading dock,
my feet above me,
backpack straps,
bicycle splayed sideways on
the narrow slope of grass,
night sky obscured by
tops of warehouses.

I cry out.
thick layers of skin lost
from my palms, my knees.
helmet digging into my chin
swollen.
a sense of loss
embarrassment
disgust.
where was I? Alone, and
betrayed by my own actions of which
i still can not remember
to this day.

you must stand, now. I said
to myself. Out loud and
gently.
my mind gaps
on how i lumbered to my bike
wheeled the damaged steed around the corner
stopped.
street lamps
and another coyote howl.
Someone was waiting for me there.
I collapsed. supported.
someone to hold my
body, tender like
bruised roses.

HOW I LOST MY WAY, OR: AN ODE TO NOODLE PETE

i track murmured words
and lines of sight.
watch you gaze to
the horizon,
the speaker,
the cold air, is
what finally makes you blink.

there is often comfort in
unknowing.
in feeling around in the dark. let
fingers do the work.
squeeze biceps,
rub necks,
the cashmere, is
what finally makes them rest.

(they had caught two foals,
two wild young stallions which
kicked and reared and bit and
struggled frantically to free themselves as
Birk and Ronia tried to tie each of them to a tree.)

It's too much in the mornings, you know?
so many hasty steps to take and
rosemary bushes to count. I'll
stop to pick up feathers,
bluster at the grey skies,
your gullied smile, is
what keeps one foot in front of the other.

I need a deep breath because i realize
the awkward growing pains of those
stretches,
pauses

of

time

 manifesting as inches of
space, between us.

very simple, two good hands

like desert, his hands of dry earth
and callouses. splintered
nails. Ocher and rust,
they match the colours of his neck.
Exposed to the winds and the suns of
many years
standing knee deep in
rubble
hot metal and
the tides.
Each night they shine silver with
residue from fish scales.
thickened by nylon ropes and salt
they've tied knots he
now sits at the kitchen table, idly
twisting into found pieces of string
and rubber bands.
Smelling of soot and fresh wounds
they
line metal, grow weary of the repetition of
a welder's work. Stretch
tense muscles and count
scars.
Firm on the wooden handle
smears of chalk and
sawdust line the cracks. He
comes home
to wash the babies and feed the dogs.
his hands
scabbed and blackened at the knuckles,
He touches their backs and
the children take comfort in their weight.
Warm to hold
an infant's head, and
his wife's smooth plait.
the dense click of fingernail against
tooth
he is thoughtful.
they hold so much weight, these hands
of carbon and sinew.
it is so
very heavy.
it is so
very simple, these
two good
hands.

YOUNG WOLF

I remember cradling your head
cooing; singing your family songs
in a voice not quite confident.
Those big purple/green mountains looking
all bruised and intimidating
deafening
in their volume. Static noise, which
over powered the dusty tapes we played
as we rush past in a little silver
volvo
taking a deep breath to go on to the next verse.

I remember a few chilled October nights
your slight nose painted,
brown for fox
black for tiger
other animals too, i suppose.
straw bale hair
bushing out, almost
as excited as you.

I remember hanging upside down on your couch
 hair, dusting the floor.
Wayne's world 1 and 2 and
two bowls of ice cream because
i wanted you to think i was cool.
Almost sheepishly I took the worn bills from your
mothers hand
shy
to put value on time spent together.

I remember your new sounds
voice low now, like aduki beans
and dry toast.
You wore a nice grey sweater
and I was unsure of the moment you grew taller than me
Did it creep past me?  or maybe it stood proud in front
of me and
I just looked through it. Glassy eyed and back facing the door.

I remember two years ago and shuffling
in the robust kitchen, socks collecting crumbs. I sneaked you downstairs
fed you liquor,
the agave burning our lips as we passed a bottle between
cousins.
Upstairs, pressing thick plastic buttons we left sad messages.
I was too drunk to remember the rest of the games played.
You were too sweet to remind me.

I remember last year. shallow messages sent
into late night grey clouds on black.
your sister and I
we drove
and drove
and drove, something we do. Across empty highways
Your nonsense, tomfoolery. you have such wit
and a golden heart. To aide and abet
navigation
high school
all things made
of salty blue skies
and wind whips.

A WORK IN PROGRESS

Really, I think of our

Autumn:

your ghost face and dying roots. Our love, irreverent.

You left nothing

but your skeleton.

Bones slick

mucous/tissue/blood/alone

to rust.

I picked them up.

Built a fence.

through construction,

they are mine.

Rejoice!

RESPONSIBILITY, UNDERRATED

what if

I chose to forgive.

burrow, to the belly

scoop this

sickness

by the handful.

I think it would

feel like ash

yet, jet black.

Powder everywhere.

I would weep

as I dug.

scraping all the sides,

to remove

every trace

Begging to be washed

free of all the

hurt

and anger, incinerated.

Released.

I guess, I do not always remember

that

it is my own job

to

free my own heart.