sheets with yellow daisies

I understood my mother more
stirring
dinner in
a thrift shop pot.

bruises turn green before yellow,
before a purple sky,
I counted raindrops
filled to the brim of yesterday’s whiskey

we found two four leaf clovers
in a black polka dot dress
strands of my hair
boxes drawn with the wind,

you didn’t mind
tears on dirt,
scooped away in between
your slip and skirt,

like clouds for eyes.

winter’s feet

in an alley painted in goldleaf
men bow before her quiver, her hands
both
death and life,
love –

Her head to the fathers who left, she
breaks petals off flowers,
painting her nails with flesh
with the sun, she sees –

A lover gone,
she lays her head
on animal skins he wore,
patterned by the day’s hunt,
to fates she laughs,
the grass holds our dew,
none can move.

Drink.

in a grand hall, atop marble steps
we gaze.

from september to november

Inside,
a self becomes a self –
from a window, we watched
liquid into glass
your neck smelled
like the first night
cold enough,

under covers
Amazed,
your arm long like a river
branches disappear,
curl and crackle
an almost full moon, copied
in your back pocket,
faded stripes like clouds

At the top,
we remember turtles with
patchwork backs,
and pressed copper coins
you rested,
with sweaty palm
breath thick as
the ascent
of a cigarette’s curl.

Deep, as a dream.

Taken,
those that buy,
those that slaughter,

those that believe.

Set free.

small deaths

A note from a forgotten lover,
when he called me names
folded bare, square on square
in a book hard to feel
like cuts made by cardboard.

It’s still hot
I’ll love winter’s silence,
no more plastic sculptures
of cream glaciers,
that incessant tune – or,
fingers black with charcoal
wearing stained red wool.

too stubborn to let the relief
of cold air in, the cap I borrowed,
it remained cupped by an embrace, I’d
leak it all,
loose on a path –
the ways of barefooted ghosts, I
chase with black earth
when the air is thin, heavy to
some.

as if throwing infinity,
paper confetti the color of a rainbow
we reach,
clear as dying leaves
my ankle your anchor.

restoration’s rest

in a blue box, pictures of relief
farmers throw their hands up
in thanks to the gods,
harvest is good.

I picked out the remains
of our love, I remember when
snow reminded you of home,
as it sat on my black eyelashes,
today, I chose another.

it stung, hardened the skin around
each bend of my fingertips, you
graced those too, many, too
many times we clung
so hard the outline of your palm
rusted two winters ago,

lost, on a belly, soft like summer corn
time began again.
On a second, light like air,
hard as a hit,
I said goodbye –

skipping stones, the smell
of ocean, its sandy baptism,
it lies.

I thought –
her cheeks, sandpaper red, she
turns,
happy.