Poems

Between the Microscope and

The Telescope 

The moment the wild blue backs away from a bread-hand,

The almost touch, almost trust,

And retreat.

 But just before the chip you introduced,

Your fire eyes by the fire.

The bottom of a paper cup cut out for viewing,

That moment, long ago tomorrow. 

At first they wouldn’t let me life life,

Then they wouldn’t let me.

 My law statement, it’s like a bird.

Don’t. Don’t let them. There’s a bird on it, don’t let them lift it.

 I know I love you but I don’t… who are you and the ocean – it’s too big.

It wasn’t the kind of childbirth I wanted to have with you. 

It was different.

The moment just before a bird flies,

Vibrating new gift – she’s leaving.

And an invisible breath drawn through almond lungs,

In the cherry of cheeks,

In the feet frozen moment, long ago tomorrow.

Empty sunflower seeds scattering 

scattering from a bleach bottle feeder, long ago tomorrow. 

My pinchers were tied with yellow tape,

And it’s been a long twenty-four hours.

The tube is on, I’ll have a little lick. Cupboard door to the wind. Repair is dripping down the windowpane.

And you never know know.

No, mom – are you cold?

Included in Litmus Press Blog February 2024

Witness Marks

Accompaniment to Shannon Garden Smith and Emily Smit Dicks exhibition at 8-11 Gallery

Listening to the faint sounds of a couple settling down for the night

She was clearly cut from the same cloth as me

She a poet 

And I a writer of fiction 

She makes two from one and one 

And together they were sleek moon-like light 

Feelings are condemning 

A sensational grip of whole body words

Now and then there was a low humm

And I could not, with my hand on my heart, say no

What they say 

Can only be said as a result of having failed

Youth culture blushes on behalf of its country 

Still, they believe each ending is a site of transformation

And like a diary they are open to the future

Hadn't there been something open about them?

(It’s not possible to identify every tiny fluctuation of the soul)

Isn’t that what they make their living from?

Share the moment with me here and now

That was their only offer

At the table, the sisters wear plastic scraps of light 

Lifting the green from its leaves

It's absence they long for 

Through the last quarter of the half full moon

Returning to the inner of the outside

There there there

It has to be there 

New Moon

 There were cycles of earthly time when my mother arrived home from work,

  And didn’t come inside

 Instead, ferrying her petite frame across the frozen patch of land we called Yard,

  She would excavate a fluffy foot off the top with a joyful plastic Dredge,

  Creating a human-width, protective trench between her car and me,

  Me watching culpable from behind our thick weatherproofed Door

 Far, in the softest part of my mind and in equal kilometers away,

  She creates bridges still, and I lie guilty puppy lazy in comfort

 There’s not a part of me that’s not full up in her, by her,

  And the evening Roots of her hair

  I can see, in my own uncertain form, glassy water particles from winters past,

Beginning to thaw

Just as she sees her own mothers’ coursing through her

Generous Face, feeling Eyes, unassuming Wrists, considerate Thighs

   May I sponge up the vestiges of gentlewomen against Atrophy‘s arid touch,

    to keep myself from Independence

   May I never fully close grief‘s Door, keeping suffering stuffed above my Larnax

    where it can serve in memorandum

   May I carry, her, this, us, she, with me

    until we can all go Home again

 Life is nothing but a minute of everything intense and forgotten and hopeful,

 in places that are always snowing