home

goshly strange people
whispering little tales
about puppies

lets drive
under the trees, the colors
its fall...

who did it come from?
this funny space, this empty
place

creepy watching ladies
from the window by the road

cold afternoons
shivers on a doorstep
waiting for you to answer

mother earth
is giving birth
to a new kind of baby

father sun
the fiery one
is burning up our memories

children bright
come through the night
to the dawn of morning

will at last
forget the past
and face their fear of growing

pattern me under this mango tree hot air just feet away and barefoot in a cold damp parking lot in winter. blizzards are elsewhere but still give me shivers of something keeping and holding. a kitten, a name, don't let her go, she'll get lost, frightened, perhaps eaten by a wolf in that terribly dark forest with that hard bare path, before the rains made puddles before the children were children and everyone was one moment of fear.

or hope. making circles in the sands and then mazes and then castles with moats and ramparts and towering walls. my sister sat on the green blanket, eating sand. sandy lips, wide eyes, a knowing smile of delight. i found a sand dollar in the early morning and later there were kayaks outside your door, knowing. the small boy was taking donations for his mother the seamstress sewing flowers together in a dark room for people in the square where we met, bumping shoulders and "excuse me" and you slipped me a note on a small piece of paper about the world ending and beginning and reinventing in those small moments between breaths, the same time it takes to trip off the curd and almost fall and duck out of the way of that bus on a mission to find lost cities underground this concrete forest canopy of dust and wet dreams careening into hillsides covered with prickly trees and nighttime snakes and that unmistakable smell of tropical airports in someone else's winter. you ankles got sore. red, raw. old socks, with holes, and old shoes, with rough spots. you stood there, looking at me, accusing. you stood there, watching me, waiting.

for something... a question?
a mistake?
or a wet, messy, bloody, surprise.

the city

the city

the (not) wide open

the known and planned and grids of solid city flesh sewn together by sidewalks i walk down and imagine you can see through my eyes and are trying to read the signs and see the sights and know where i am.

the unknown and unfriendly and stranger.

the stranger with the bright orange pants, and the stranger with the dark sunglasses, and the stranger stranger than me or most of my crew on this boat ready to sail away from this port and out into the ocean miles of blue a storm on the horizon but blowing away into the distance.

we won't hit the cliffs, we won't even see the lights. the stars will go black as the water turns to oil and a river banked by dark brown shores. floating forever deeper into a place no person can go, wanting to swim, or even walk on the shore, but stuck in this boat, on this river, in this eternal twilight.

drop a bell
on the deck
here it rings
in silence