Smidgens
Only through our vulnerabilities
Can we speak of ourselves
Where no genders build language
Where no categories structure
Your reaction to my voice…..
My reaction to your voice.
Either of us can be the words
Slicing into the coolness
Of our combined angers…..
Of our singular gentleness
Haze is in our voice,
Wraps the air in orange
Our mouths taste of ash
From heat and dryness
Encircling our throats
We speak through filters
We become speechless
Our voice is smoke
As the sun turns colors
A Pumpkin glow, fluttering
Our talk is like cinders
Composed of dark cumulus
Layers bound inside bark
Released…we become confused
We seek the onshore flow
The lucid linear spoken spell
That quells our child tongue
Who claims immortality
Even if just for a second.
To deny the child
That sparks within us…for
It is us who light the dark.
The moth is eaten by flame….gone
The bay is a memory
Whose time is always now
Glowing greenish blue
Before rocks and sand
Slow in its inland intrusion
Into small beach towns
Where I fish the unknown
Green line on a stick
Taste familiar cotton candy
Watch taffy pulled
Eat bread shaped
Like a rock.
I refuse to let the bay go
Even as I shelter
Myself from storms the bay brings
To my doorstep, mat, and mailbox.
I hear it pelting my shingles
Tapping at my dirty windows.
I don’t invite it in
Deciding to meet the wind
On its own terms; outside
Where it washes my old desires
Causing a yearn
From the skin to the inside
Filling me full of myths
The disbelief that shapes me
Stemming from a past
Lingering in the present
A linear fishing line
Dangling into the dark of the bay
And like you all
I decorate inside my basement
With old trophies, shoes,
Broken odds and ends,
Defunct tools of communication
My only glimpse of the beach town
Is through a window, distorted
A mirror of handed-down stories
That I scribble into sense, inside
The cracks of concrete walls
Trapped and freed
By the bay’s storm, I eat
The rest of the bread
Cotton candy and taffy.
Attempting to turn my water
Into a sweet reddish cherry drink
Held together by impenetrable
Veins, vessels, and arteries adhered
To bones the shape of rocks
Other towns dot the shoreline
With bays attached
Span of index, arms weakened
Rambles upon wrinkles, I am
Pressed between Earth and
Air…..Flow upon my continent’s
Systems, scattered over ranges
Puddles flirt with thirst, Lakes,
Mock the drought of my
Throat, Reservoirs dribble…
For My body is a gathering
Of harvests from the oncoming
Winter, the divining rod dust
Only Scent lingers, eternal pine
I look to the snow, Taste
The season, a melted past of
Garnished greens, grays, and suns
Hearty robin, ever alive, steam
Floating from her beak, Nest
Built of water, sticks, and mud
Her Feathers, wisdom’s movement
Lay upon my words, a slow worm
Snagged from frosty grass
Scrawled black upon the field
Desert letters made of tree knot
Symbols smeared / slants of rain
The blue, blue liquid cleanses
Meaning, shot out of innards
The words, worms always
Cut in two, the clay I am
My eyes, lids nearly glued shut
Begging for preservatives
Or the relieving thought of
A connection to moisture
That will keep words moving
My wet hand through dirt.
Pain rides up between thumb
Finger, Palm and Lifeline.
My arm is silent, swollen.
Language is oil now, dug
Dug, deep under my nails
