How holy
Is this little universe Of 5:17 in the morning? these salty dregs of nighttime That belong only to The peculiar few? This Fraying tapestry of Blue silk, sweet coffee, And salted almonds That rips open, stretches wide In our funhouse mirror Of midnight, leftover. A bubble of the galaxy You hubba bubba blew, Popping only with that Petulant prod of dawn. The open window Paints the floor an inky indigo, And we go swimming before breakfast, Take an extra hour to Dive for oysters. I fill my cheeks with pearls this morning. Spit them out, one by one, Into your open palms. You toss them into the sky, The stars eat them in big gulps. Before dawn, the darkness is sweet And sticky - It drips down the walls like molasses, Gets in between my toes, Lathers itself in your hair, Curls around the purring cat. I dip a brush in the ocean licking our feet And paint the windows dark. Then you, swirling the morning hour Onto you belly, up you neck, over you eyelids. Then, I cover myself in morning, too, And we are lost to the blue.
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I am not a difficult woman to haunt.
I relish the company. in the misty evenings, when the cool blue night curls around my ankles, and the strange new light flickers like ghosts across my empty floor, i’ll invite those old ghosts into my bed. i’m easy, maybe, starved for fodder for my famished imagination - I can turn the most rotten fruits into poems. I have always believed in ghosts more than I have believed in death. everything has a certain staying power, and i’m known to return clothing to the consignment store, because someone else was still wearing it. and how can I talk about ghosts without talking about my father’s mother tongue? that flickers in the back of my throat, slithers from my mouth in a bad accent, a hissing snake of a country my children may never know. and how can I talk about ghosts without talking about trees? the way they shudder and sigh the life out of themselves every september? the way death has hanged from their gnarled grasp, the way they cast shade over even the driest, most brittle bones. believing in ghosts is a special kind of labor. it’s a certain practice of seeing everything In the almost-past tense (and the almost-present). I read somewhere that every photograph is a little death. we snap the shutter, write the poem, blink our eyes - and we etch the tombstone. le petit mort. sorry for killing the moment. the fluttering, palpitating rhythm that is me,
that tugs and pulls catches on a tune or a kind word and goes running with the wind? how many ways can I describe the way I feel in my fingers and the tips of my ears when you happen around? the pounding, shaking the floor i’m standing on, or a lightly lightly tapping metronome to the beat of your words? you’d think I’d be used to it by now - the marching band of drums that comes stomping, banging, blaring, as you float noiselessly through the room. I cannot sleep, so I imagine my mattress is a raft.
My hot and stiff apartment floats away, And I begin to bob and heave with the breathing sighs of the sea. My things, strewn about on what was once a floor Are caught in the waves, Fading in and out of view as blue crests and falls over the horizon. I watch my guitar float past, A humpback whale its willing courier. Peering into the depths, I find myself in good company, As turtles balance my books on their shells, Seahorses tug my jewelry through the current, And an octopus grasps each of my favorite dresses In its slippery tentacles. I do not ask my companions where we are going, Knowing full well their inclination toward mystery and intrigue. My new apartment and I float through the blue depths, Charted on a route we do not yet know. I lean back, let the mist spray my forehead. My fingers hang off the edge of the bed, And I paint gentle strokes through the water. You can rest, dear, I hear the whale whisper to me, when no one’s paying attention. We know where you’re headed. In this corner, I will build a paper castle.
Cut knights and kings out of construction paper and cardboard, Build a moat of duct tape, And barricade myself from the rest of the world. In this corner, I’ll rebuild. Let me apologize for the wars I unfairly won, Let me give back stolen farmland, Repent for my sins in this stagnant, empty palace. Allow me my odes, epithets, pleas -- Let me shout into this wind, it’s all I have. The curtains are billowing, a seashell white, An embroidered love letter -- They are full of ghosts with whom I am yet to make peace. My ghosts, I love you, I miss you, I owe you —-- These barricades, dears - they’re yours, they’re ours. let this be the site of their ruin. |
journal entriessome poems, some prose, some in-between Archives
October 2020
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