Testing

You asked me to dance

and I wanted to dance.

 

You asked me to sing

but I didn’t know the words.

 

You asked me to love you

and I didn’t know how.

 

You spoke of friendship

but we never really spoke.

 

About the heart—

is it desperately wicked?

 

Or merely deceitful?

It is full of grasping.

 

I constantly fool myself.

Hold onto the wrong thing.

 

I have played the fool

too many times to count.

 

I am so full of foolishness—

Incandescent.

 

Bones burning within me

in the depths of silence.

 

Lay me on the anvil.

Fashion me a sword

 

or leave me a ploughshare.

Just break the skin.

My first poem

I don’t remember

when I first fell in love

with poetry.

Every grade had poetry;

every year we wrote

a poem. 

              Or two.

But there was never a moment

when poetry stood up and

announced itself to me.

                                      Or two.

 

I do remember,

however, discovering

e. e. cummings—

for the first time

poetry seemed playful,

or that t(here was a mystery)

to be discovered;

that language was

a puzzle

to be put together

and taken apart

to be put together.

Even now,

he and Donne remain

my favourite sonneteers.

Sonneticists? Sonneticians?

(O! no disrespect

  to Shakespeare

                           intended)

 

Remember:

to fall in love with poetry

requires you to keep reading

poetry, to remember words,

ways to shape them—

to sow poems like seeds,

to perhaps hand them

to a loved one,

or a stranger.

spring

i don’t prefer it

when it is sunny and cold;

it confuses me.

in the morning

there is a dusting of snow

and frost on the windows,

and by noon it is gone.

that’s spring! they say,

but i don’t prefer it.

it’s probably not

climate change

but maybe

i need more data.

there’s always been snow

in April – it’s spring!

what we need is rain;

moisture in any form

is still useful

and necessary.

i need to know

there will be flowers,

the trees will bud,

the grass will green,

ladybugs and bees

will do their work.

it will still be cold

in the morning

and warm by noon.

we will wear our layers

until it is summer again.

maybe we will meet outside

at the picnic tables,

go for walks again,

talk about the weather—

how short summer is;

how long the winter.

endings

i’m forgetting

all the words of

my favourite songs.

i pray in silence

as i walk. i’m not

in any hurry.

there are fewer

conversations

between us now.

sometimes silence

makes it simpler;

though not easier.

everything requires

more effort from me.

i’m prepared to give.

i haven’t read

a good book

in a long time.

lately, there is

only poetry. and

not enough of it.

i want for beauty.

language that lifts

off the page.--

burnt offerings

that fill my belly,

turn me to ashes.

o, that i could

remember each word

that moves me.

but there’s no point.

i’d only remember

the arguments.

so here’s a flower.

i have nothing else left.

let that be the end of it.

perhaps

today i found a secret door

i did not open it

 

some things should remain hidden

but not all things

 

i wanted to whisper all my secrets

Into your ear

 

you kept turning your head

turning my secrets into kisses

 

or perhaps i turned our kisses

into secrets

 

or (perhaps) the door should remain closed

or (perhaps) i still want to open it

 

or (perhaps) i’m tired of secrets

or (perhaps) i’ve grown hard of hearing

 

i keep running into doors

and never through them

 

i have the bruises as witnesses

they speak to me at night

 

until all i can think of is your mouth

the way you say my name