my poems are getting shorter. everything is more measured now.
*
this is the moment promises are made lightly and i hide from view.
*
some words were exchanged and emotions hard bartered for scraps of
meaning.
*
i asked you to come home and spend whatever time was required to make
your way clear.
*
lay down your burden at your enemy’s feet and find yourself alight.
*
you are mostly empty space and light traversing the gap between hearts.
*
then come take my hand and eat the words i lift to your lips with longing.
*
the only thing known to shift story from whispers to a memory.
*
this and this and this longing and desire for joy - a settled embrace.
*
walking the slow path, i stop to smell a flower – a reminder of you.
*
the way to carve space is to assign it new names and set it loosely.
*
i only wanted this – this thing i now desire – this unending joy.
*
your mouth, delicate, as it tastes this sweet nothing rotten at its
core.
*
the way a shell breaks and light enters like a thief, each desperate
thought.
*
and then the flag raised and trumpets sounding the depths as we brace
ourselves.
*
my feet stand ready at a moment’s notice, fast – i will own this
ground.
*
the earth will own me, will claim my songs as ransom, a verse to all
change.
*
my face set like flint against or towards mountains and valleys and
seas.
*
until our bodies press next to time and flesh weakens, spirit and blood
rise.
*
again the promise to have and to hold and to never walk away.
*
again the path, again the light and sound of drumming, echoing the bones.
*
and thus I am known, and perhaps rejected, and perhaps too, embraced.
