Pointing North

The day I started to go crazy
I thought an earthquake
was starting in my feet
and trembled her way into my mouth
like bees and electricity.

Soon after I thought I was sprouting wings
with feathers that sparkled and grew stronger
as I saw the light turn purple
when I closed my eyes.

When I was a girl
I admired the danger
and strong beauty of tigers
as they moved in the jungle
of my mind. The mask that hides courage
has turned strength into ugly plastic
that cannot possibly be loved
by any imagination
but of those who are dead.

Now I sit with bandages on my wounds
and bleed all emotion into the flood
of my former self.

I can only travel these lonely,
back roads of despair in silence.
If I stop to look at the gold coins of nature
gathering at my ankles
I am sure the statue of dust I am becoming
will disappear with the next breath
of cold November wind.

The ghosts of lovers and their mothers
will try to collect the tiny pieces that were me
to explain the sacred abandon of space
as if I were a fallen star.
It will not matter.

I am lost
no matter
which way I turn
and it does not help
to admit
that the compass
disguised as a heart,
was shattered
when I took possession
of this body—
before I even knew
how to point
north.

Paint Pink Feathers

Paint pink feathers across the blue sky in October
and soften the blow of all this leaving.

If I go now
it will only reflect my sorrow
at losses of everything I thought was true.

The stars are not here yet to comfort me
and the moon has retreated into her darkness
and is nothing to me now.

Be soft.
Be gentle as the bodies
that fall all around me
like ghosts of my other lives.

Cradle me like a mother
holding her son
soothing his cries
for something more.

This light is beyond my understanding
like a dream and I must find an escape--
the rejection of the body of evidence
has left me alone in the friendship
of so much silence.

These feathers of the night fade.
Black and white replace the delicate shades
of compassion and I have no choice but to breathe
my last breaths like I am begging for a forgiveness
I never knew I needed to find.

If I can only wake up and welcome the mother
who is following me too closely
asking me to pray for you over my left shoulder,
I may find the way
to redemption.

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.