Memoir

I hadn't expected your arrival at my door,
the rain still fresh in my hair
and a puddle left soaking into the hem of my skirt

but there you stood
dark and quiet
as the child of this day
expecting the urgent universe
to unfold.

Your mouth found me ready
to loosen the tight binding
wrapped red and circling
the forbidden places
and forgotten corridors
of this house.

I did not turn you away
but instead traced the shadows
on your arm and did what any woman would
when offered the silence of pleasure.

We Live in Bodies

When I send the air and salt
from the inner journey to my true self
on postcards to the universe

I will first unravel the blue salvages
of my name and return to the center of the circle
where I was nothing.

With my black pen
I will write to her
of the constant longing for light
and the eclipses that bent joy to the earth
in conversations with starlight
on my skin.

Of romance
I will take the time
in the small spaces
to be clear
that living in abundant kindness
is what I wanted—
like poems that can’t help
but capture beauty in one word
placed precisely next to others
in a line of love.

And what of these mortal bodies can I offer
but that they are meant to hold the spirit
like a basket of grace to be shared
with God on the faces
and in the arms of other travelers
looking to find their way home.

This is
after all
where we must live
and patience will not turn us
into the darkness or cold.

Into The Fields

We won’t go there today
into the fields
where the grasses and flowers of summer are brown
and escaping the light and the impermanence of green.
We won’t go to the places where dragonflies hover
and dart into the sky with purpose.

No,
today we hide
near the fire,
burrow into each other
like the two small and wild birds we are,
come home to nest, before the winds
start howling again and we are lost
from each others’ song.

Your feathers glisten
next to the faded seasons I carry.
I close my eyes only when I must rest
and when I stretch my neck to smooth my cheek
against the layers of softness you offer this longing.

When the sun returns,
or perhaps under the bright waning moon,
we will fly together again over the spaces
where you first found me
balancing on a stem of burdock
and considering the possibilities of flight.

All the Ways

In the afternoon
everyone’s mind wanders off,
sometimes scanning an empty street
to see a familiar face or car
only to end up rummaging through
the pantry of emotional jam
for just the right flavor
on just the right
kind of toast with tea.

Taste the sweetness
just inside the mouth of memory
and you will know the bitterness
of this much longing
like the Buddha
eating a few grains of rice
on the last days before
enlightenment.

Tomorrow you will come to me
like you did the last time
and hold me
before I fall,
too weak to stand
alone in my desire.
Here it will be known
that the human body
can be moved to great courage
for a single act of unconditional love.

Hold my face in your hands.
Place your hands on the small of my aching back.
Rub my weary temples.
Stoke my curls damp with night
and foggy with sleep
and dreaming
of all the ways
I want you.

Untitled

The ancient scent of your soul
lingers on the hem of my dress
and on my hands from this earthen climb.
Even the locks of my hair curl
around the sacred conversation
of the musky dampness
of this kind of paradise.

Here we live
in memories stolen
from the pocket of a widow's coat,
from another life,
where you slip shoes
from my tired feet
at the end of a long day
and assess the damages
with so much kindness
I've come back to find you again.

In the geography of the impossible
we've found each other wanting nothing more
than comfort and the ease that comes
just healing the wounds of another day.

Come even closer than you dare
and exhale into my open mouth.
Here the green moss will rub free
from the walls of this old place
and you will see my name
etched into the stones
near the river
and into the place inside yourself
that reflects ripples
of absolute home.

The Earth Between Us

It is September
and the heat of the day
turns my heart racing
like the blades of a frantic fan
trying to disburse the remnants
of a summer that never was.

Red leaves fall outside my windows
onto the dirt of the driveway
like droplets of old blood,
crimson with a death I love.

I can't take my eyes off the body
decaying slowly with the light.

I've waited through stagnant years
to unleash the fury of my life.
The switch has been flipped
and the spark ignites moment after moment.

On, off.
On, off.
On, off,
blinking,
then holding
steady.

For one moment at a time
we hold each others' gaze
in the dark house of the truth
and listen to the leaves drop
whispering to the earth between us.

In the Pursuit

It is September just before the first frost.
Here I am in the overgrown garden

and I am not the farmer.
I am located on the edge

of the tangled summer.
You will find me to the left

of the stonewall
and where the trees have learned

to translate silence,
where fog and desire blur the edges

of all the rules of nature.
For all this heat

we have burned to make one another glow,
to gaze at sun setting into purples,

and to let earth cool around us
until we are lifted into the arms of stars.

We travel in native time and heal our wounds
with magic, secret herbs, and prayers

that sooth us with the blessings of our mothers.

Be lightning. Be skin and blood to touch.
Be an endless breath. Be invisible and primal stones

anchoring us to these happy days of new autumn.
Let the sky take us to where we harvest

only the bright beauty
of our absolute joy.