floating and leaving no trace
you hang in the sky
a morning full moon
pale transparent stranger
alone in winter white expanse
i’ve known you forever
as long as i’ve known
the moon
i don’t know you at all
don’t recognize
these changing faces
that wax and wane
while you pull at my tides
i beg for cloud cover
and remember how you cut me
and how i had to cauterize
my own wounds
so i wouldn’t bleed out
you burn through my night
cold light closer than the clouds
dancing in my vision
i pass through a cold spot
the paranormal experts
tell me this is a sign
some formerly corporeal being
is absorbing energy because
it wishes to communicate
or otherwise engage
with a world of mucus-leaking
sacks of wobbly flesh
who’s a good boy?
i don’t discourage the flickers
at the edge of my vision
the sound of jangled tags
the clacking of long toenails
happy to ride a bus
i’ll get off only when they make me
without a known destination
still
lately i gaze
out the window at a soft horizon
and feel the need for heaven
the hawk alights on the tree
after sweeping overhead
a quartet of crows caw
alerting everything below
to the hawk’s presence
not enough birds for a murder
but maybe enough to prevent one
red autumn eye
looks southward now
through heavy coat
hard to feel its gaze
but the eye lingers over me
like twilight spiderwebs in my hair
counting out my time
dawn by dawn
i set my feet upon the earth
send down roots
among sycamores
among eucalyptus
i can stand a cold morning or two
yet
i haven’t seen a paperboy
in years
/forgive the sexist terminology
i am aware of it and i’m working on it/
i haven’t heard the
satisfying smack
of atrocities landing in my driveway
or my neighbor’s driveway
my neighbors drive away
my neighbors driven away
i do not read the news
still, it reaches inside my chest
night time hands
separating organs from fatty membranes
autumn red eye
roll south
take these shuddering breaths with you
take these neighbors
who drive away
who don’t read the paper
roll south
i have been taking swimming
lessons because
i want to learn how to float
i picked an instructor
with a lot of experience
in the water but
i think
the anchor wasn’t the best
choice
the millstone turns heavy
powered by blood
torrents of thick red
jam coagulating where it pools
and there’s no grist to grind
only chaff left
from the threshing floor
but grind it does
the wheel grinds
it is all it knows how to do
and so it turns and grinds
we bake our bread
with rough husk flour
we bake our poor loaves
black on the coals
of our ancestors’ bones
bitter is the crust
with no spot of fat
to grease the pitted stone
that is our only sustenance
and nothing to wash it
down but overflowing glasses of
gall bitter from our own hands
this is our bread
our communion
no silhouette cut by diamonds
no sharp crisp edge of a shadow
you need a cloudless sky
and a summer sun for that
the fog bound star in the sky
gives me a fuzzy edge
vampires don’t cast
reflections in mirrors or shadows
because they lost their souls.
what of my caterpillar-soft double
writhing on the ground
attached at the feet
attached until i float
attached then not at all
what sound does a shadow make
the creaking of bones?
the grinding of teeth?
the paper on paper whisper
of a moth’s wings?
worm on the sidewalk
wriggles and dances, whip crack
thrown to grass safety
seems innocent enough
a holiday display
a single word
with a dozen tiny lights
the word
joy
as seen
from outside
shining in a window
but looking at it
from inside
with the lights turned off
it looks so much like
you
but broken
or stunted at least
if not shattered
this isn’t
a fundamental or cosmic truth
and i’m not reading
anything into the odd bit of
seasonal dyslexia
or the inside/outside holiday dichotomy
it just struck me
is all
Words and Feathers 