I was never told (landays)

I was never told there was a key

I spent those years hurling myself at the locks instead

Somewhere in the basement is a list

Of all the bruises, turning their fairytale colors

What is the thin space between the files?

Why does the handwriting sing in your mother's voices?

What can I tell you first, young Marie?

I watch you through the backwards glass and you won't listen

Whatever I write now you erase

I waltz as slow as I can. You shoot at my ankles

Name the children, quick, before they fade

Fold them into peace cranes, jump them through the love canals

Scoop the tomorrows fast as they come

Count the dreams, swim the lost caves, know they will never stop

Throw the minutes high into the air

So that there will be time for the race before they fall

I will count the names we've forgotten

You and I, so earnestly holding onto the hands

I will swallow the key at midnight

So that the fairytale colors finally make sense

Mute in your memory (swarm of words ghazal)

Mute in your memory I melt under a swarm of words

In my head I preach a love-twined platform of words

Shredded and sliced, the angry language that serves us

In shared arms I singsong the daily reform of words

I sling your body to the hot remembered fourwinds

Forgiveness a blessed icicle in your snowstorm of words

Nothing rhymes or reasons, no pattern pulses twice

Wheels grind sweet inside wheels, brainstorm of words

From your biglife to my smallroom I loft you alive

The touch of your stray hair is the oldest form of words

Free rebels atop the mountain we stand through the years

Cut to our stony selves in the long sandstorm of words

nonet (the road drives through me)

the road drives through me, the miles braid knots

I am small meat in large swift steel

threading the giant parade

birdkillers triumphant

roadside victory

nightmare drumbeat

on my lips

stories

life

nonet (grieve the marriage)

grieve the marriage of dream and knuckles

mourn the house of wicked and fat

you don't touch me you don't touch

temple of potluck feuds

macaroni fest

see-through airmail

chair soldiers

preach it

gone

Lifetimes (landays)

Chasing fresh chickens for tomorrow

I trip on yard roots the day cook would thrill to gather

My grandmothers squirrel me away

In unfindable closets, powder me to sweetness

The glass jags. I burst. Forget, forget!

The light burns before I come clean, the swim washes past

I catch the children falling through me

From trees I can't see to paths I can't reach with these toes

I speak alone. In sleep, in old rooms

I echo the bodies that build the chains that don't crack

I breathe the code. You dial the gods

Don't make it hard. These fields of mercy are ripening

lunes

lunes

blood seeps through

hands were meant to build

things break down

hot purple weave

body sits, mind does cha-cha

clothes like anchors

give me time

this life was not chosen

glass, hurt everywhere

long ago, naptime

gray and red army blankets

the rough wool

long ago, recess

sand packed in grand castles

swiftly knocked down

sweet grannies rock

trucks drive through picture windows

give it time