when i was a child,
momma told me:
sticks and stones
may break my bones
but words
will never hurt me.
“Clauses,” “Complements,” and “Moods”
The subordinate clause clattered to the asphalt:
Because I didn’t want to be a house flower.
He fluttered his fingers like a hitchhiker. He hoped
to thumb a ride from a dependent clause,
“Hineini” and “Lover Found/Lost (Renée)”
i am neither the seed
nor the fruit –
You water
me in the in
between;
between love and
the weeds
where i hide,
“when the barn owl hoots no more,” “no trace,” and “again”
when the night’s
dark eyes won’t lift their lids
the sun
won’t cheer the day awake
storms
lose their breath
oceans
forget their flow
“Grief,” “Clouds in the Sky,” and “Recalculating”
A month after our daughter was born,
we planted a white dogwood. I didn’t know
the legend of the crucifixion wood.
I just liked the symmetry
of the four-petaled flowers, plump white crosses
with bright green pistils in the middle.
“dep sesh,” “sadhu,” and “Missus Oxygen Kisses Mister Dynamite’s Heart”
loci of suffering’s
my measly attempt
to lower stress level
a crying need warns
me off phantasmagoric
pathologist’s post-mortem