my skin is a lead bodysuit
and other than the hope
that it might crush me one day
it hides my vibrating bones
so that I am the only one
that feels them shaking
inside of me
“01 – to feel what it feels like”
when i was eighteen
i lost sensation
in my cheeks. it was only
years later, once i felt the
slightest tingling
return to that same skin
that i let myself mourn
its absence (easier to numb
with positivity and denial
than to recount
the beauty and
brokenness
that led to its loss).
“My Salute to the Decoder Ring,” “The Night Visitors” and “The Unveiling”
If I had an amazing tool
it would be a decoder ring
straight from my cereal box
that would morph into a briefcase,
when I pressed a button
into the hand tooled leather satchel.
“Triptych of Things,” “In Space” and “Over by Night”
SHIRT
A favorite blue shirt wears my loyalty.
Beside –
hangs a pima cotton. Fine stitch
for my affection.
GLOVE
When young, I wore a glove of wonder
snug to my hand.
Held with fame of little round stars
falling in day.
“Lucknow,” “The Plymouth Inn” and “North of the Presidentials”
My cousins and I bunk in the impromptu nursery
cribs crowded together with a sewing machine
and drapery fabrics and unfinished curtains
near the sunset bedroom originally Olive Plant’s,
across from the Roosevelt room and the guest bath
white porcelain tile, needle surround shower, fixtures of brass.
“Attic,” “Thalia and Melpomene” and “And So We Sleep”
Three chains:
The first hanging in the hall
Just within reach, but
High enough not to disturb traffic through the short hallway
“The Avatar” and “A Viper and a Chickadee”
You found malleable a woman of uncandled clay;
I suppose it was she who gave you the carver’s adze,
Saying, “I just want to be close to you” –
You smiled through the splinters in your gloss
And took lacquered fingers to the handle.
“Dirt Clouds,” “Accentuating Florence” and “Saying Goodbye to Florence Is Filled with Mud”
At my picture window, I raise the blinds
On the graveyard side. And, it’s you, July,
Lovely ghost? Not changed much since you were ten.
That’s how old I was when Pap George sold me
To Seth Woodall. I was thin as a seam,
Fearless, too; Runaway? Not so bold, see?
“Rock Paper Pictures,” “Of Voices, Waters, and Fires” and “Samsara Serenade”
It’s called The Cave of Forgotten Dreams
this place where handprints
with broken finger
wave at squint-eyed scientists
where prehistoric rhino, too,
looks up and down
“House at Night,” “My Life Map” and “Just Another Brunch”
Gold-flecked dust ignites in waves.
I kiss my desert skin.
The coyote’s song lulls me
before I count the sheep.
The doorknob will turn
before the lock’s clasp
“Stiletto,” “Redeeming Time” and “Successive”
Stiletto drops like river
Runoff echo in the cave.
Once dawn’s cables bridge
The canyon, you, first
Diurnal venturer,
Step out to punish pavement;
“In the Key of Keystone,” “Lost & Found & Lost” and “Winter Wind”
It was all that jazz
it was the city — San Francisco
it was the venue — Keystone Korner
a former topless bar on Vallejo Street transformed
into a world class club its interior intimate its memory indelible
& all that jazz
“The Sherman, the Grant, The Eldest,” “Eyes in the Warehouse” and “Musket”
The General Sherman bounds 1,487m
all wood
***
Like a bird god lean and hard
Sherman surveys Atlanta
His face bewhiskered, pockmarked
his choice to end this here
“Kismet,” “Walking as Loren Eiseley” and “An Ominous Greeting”
We’ve had enough! We’re taking it back!
The earth once belonged to the docile and us—
the wild—but no more will you, the puffed-up,
two-legged man, raze our forests and our swamps,
no more spew your chemicals into our homes
or fell our forests and set our lairs ablaze,
“The Last Days of the Dinosaurs”
In third grade, one afternoon,
we were ushered into the auditorium
for a 16mm animated film
about dinosaurs.
As comets and asteroids fell,
pocking the earth,
so did the huge creatures,
“Death By Bleaching”
They tell me that I’m not dying.
That my limbs aren’t burning.
That my face isn’t as ashen as I make it out to be.
But what do they know –
the false prophets with their loose lips, tailored suits, and painted-up lies?
Elephant in the Room
these days the smiles are scripted
to induce the flow of joy
in hopes
they amplify an initial step
to overcome the inertia
of years of climate induced apathy
i still remember the days
when i did not have to remind myself
to smile or breathe deep
“Cold Salad,” “At Shore” and “Sightless”
In a cold winter thought
I grabbed the earth by its head of trees
and ripped upward to free the firmament
beneath.
No earthworms or other secrets.
Human figures entwined
in angered roots.