Cold-Weather Love

I will love you like
the kids love Santa Claus,
I will accept your gifts,
and they will prove
that you exist;

I will let you drip
and harden over me like
sap at a sugar bush,
poured over snow,
curled onto a spoon,
melting on my tongue;

I will follow you like
the North Star,
and you will
bring me blessings
when I find you.

Winter Solstice

Love is a warm cabin
on the winter solstice,
a circle of friends,
cedar boughs,
sprigs of lavender,
plastic glasses meeting,
and standing close,
even in the middle of
a pandemic.

We have toasts or incantations
for love and for new blessings,
we say them with Jupiter and Saturn
forming a conjunction in the sky.

Love may take a while to unfold,
but we will breathe through it,
this transformation may take a while,
but we will breathe through it,
the Yule log will take a while,
but we will light up the sky as it burns.

We have the privilege of time and space,
celebrating this shift in the universe,
at an eight-sided cabin in the woods,
our laughter echoing across the snow,
the soft buzz of the generator in the distance,
and the crackle of the fires burning down.

Ode to an Island

love to me
is a moss-covered rock,
the whole bay
glittering from the sun,
the leaves turning red
and deep orange.

love to me
is little birds
flying everwhere,
chickadees and hummingbirds,
buzzing like june bugs,
or motors.

The World Blazes

On these days
though I see the colours
of Mid-October
rich and deep
burgundies and cardinal reds,
the bay twinkling dusty blue,

my soul feels like
the trees in the middle of winter,
maple, ash, and oak,
stark and empty
after all the colours fade and fall
to their annual deaths.

The world is blazing through
its own slow fade,
yet I am like the smoke
slyly rising
from an old bonfire,
nearly extinguished,
grey as ash.

I Will Not

I will not run,
I will stand determined,
Listening to my gut,
Knowing that even if
It speaks my doubts,
It clears my path.

I will not attach,
I will stand within myself,
Listening to the universe,
Knowing the signs all around
Might be only apophenia:
They tell me to unfold.

I will not be cold,
I will draw nearer to the fire,
Listening to its crackle,
Knowing if I lean too far in,
It will only teach me
To heal my wounds.

I will not rush forth,
I will stand in the shadows
Listening to the wind,
Looking for the neon sun,
It will awaken me,
It will remind me to be.

I Have a Story

Let me tell you,
I know that I
don’t know you,
but I have a story
I long to tell

about your lips,
sumac red,
your eyes unsure,
speaking tales
of someone
trying to escape
his greatness,
along with all his pain.

It is burrowed deep
under layers laced
with your varied words,
coated in crystal,
trimmed enough
but not cut clean.

I have a story.

I'd Heal You Up

I want to cover you in sumac,
piece by piece,
pressing it softly into you,
and holding it there
while your eyes close
and you let it heal you.

I picture you driving your truck
down every line
of the corn fields,
empty now, for winter comes.
I see you gazing left to right
at the sunset.
you drive and drive,
you gaze and gaze,
you inhale and exhale,
smoke rises,
your eyelashes are shadows
against the sky.

I picture the velvet
melting into you,
as slowly your body
is enveloped bit by bit.

I watch flakes land on your long lashes,
compare the pace of your blinking
to the rhythm of the snow.
It falls softly all over the ground.

I cover your lips last, but they
are already red like the sumac,
they are spread long over
your snow white teeth.
Only your eyes are left
and they glimmer in the sun.

This second skin of sumac
will heal you up, will make you soft again.
It looks red, but it is also brown
because of all the dirt within it,
after seasons and different winds.
You have dirt to shed, too.

I hold the sumac between my fingers,
breathe in its texture, feel its softness.
Your eyes are a fortress sparkling,
and when you drive across the field,
I see you scanning the shapes against the sky,
while you choose between your paths.

I put the sumac pieces all over your skin,
but you have to want to heal
for the sumac to make you soft again,
you have to want to be whole
and it might hurt,
and take some time.

If we made it to summer,
I’d wrap sumac leaves all around you,
make you emerald green.
If we made it to fall,
I’d wrap neon red all over your shoulders
and your strong arms,
but we have only the velvet pieces of the flower now,
and you have to breathe as I press it against you,
as I place it piece by piece,
in hopes to heal you.

The world is white now from the snow,
the sumac is red like your lips,
or the blood beating through our hearts
(were it out in the oxygen of the world,
but it flows blue inside us still).
The snow will melt and with it us too,
revealing only dirt left on the ground.

I’d like to heal you up,
let the softness of the sumac
insulate you from the pain
that is inevitable to feel
to make you whole again.

Hungry Me

I had hunger,
but you preferred snacks
over meals,
wanted not to dirty the dishes,
so you had less to clean.

I was hungry,
wanted to eat
full meals,
even though it took time
to order
or prepare,
to sit
and share.

I was always hungry,
and you fed me snacks.

Dust From the Tracks

I chose you
because of your long arms,
the first time they wrapped
around the full width of me
I knew I desperately
wanted you more
than the others did,

you
because of all your books:
fantasy,
politics,
business,
biographies,
stacking taller and taller
on your bedside table,

you
because you were quiet
and I grew up in a loud home,
you showed restraint,
you studied stoicism,
and I always felt
too full of fire,
too forthcoming,
I knew you would quiet me,

but I left because
I didn’t like being
the only one
in the room
when I smelled the dust
from the tracks
through the open window,

when I felt the train shaking
the walls before I heard it
beating along,
wondering how long it was,
where it was going,
where it was coming from,
the things it was carrying,

trying to catch a glimpse of
some history or graffiti,

I left because
we were always
smelling the dust,
listening to the train,
feeling it vibrate through us
from separate floors.

Extraction

I can feel you here
as I breathe out and sink in
to this place
you helped me build
so you
could
leave.

photographs of your grandfather
when he was your age
with your same shining eyes
flash
softly
sometimes.

I squint at all the
shapes we made
to fit
each other
in

and I see that they
are empty
now.

now that

you

have
finally
left here.

we made a promise
and we broke it.

I see you
turn down the highway

in the opposite
direction

in your brand new pick up truck
with your emerald eyes skimming
past me.

and I wonder what to do
with what is left of you,
of this life I built
so you'd fit in.

Purple Grey

the purple asters sway
against the sky flat gray,
tread water through summer
and now I'm fading with the light,
a little more each day.

northwestern wind blows,
but we have a place we can go,
a turtle carcass slows or speeds
our hunt for rarities among rocks,
here at the mouth of the bay.

we skim and scan for lightness,
but we find things dead or broken,
glass still unremarkable
from bottles recently smashed,
we throw it back and skim again.

soon we will forget the feeling
of sand under our feet,
will yearn for what we lost
when summer turned to fall,
when we watched ourselves fading,

but the asters still sway,
against the sky smoky grey.

It Was Nice to See You

I thought I’d never see you again
But here you are
Forming in the air
Along dusty roads

You part your lips
To speak pure poetry
You'll need a lot of tools
To cultivate the land

Did you know
You’re a poem to me?

Your sapphire eyes sparkle,
Your scarlet lips smile

You’re forming here like dust
Or sugar in the air

I see sugar all over the air again,
Over skin, pale and tanned,
Dust flying all over the air again
On country roads

LoverMuse

I am a poet,
and he is my lovermuse.

his limbs fall into lines,
his fingers roll words to rhythm,
he drinks down history,
he tells me policy,
he sips my beers.

his brain is deep,
he talks and talks,
his eyes gaze,
his arms ripple and curve,
he says he takes it easy on the drugs now,
he has things to lose now.

he heats up next to me,
sleeps like white noise next to me,
his heart is beating
like lustlove to me,
he sees right into me,
knows how to lay his hands
right onto me.

I am a poet,
and he is the poem.

Acorn Falling

acceptance she thought she
saw/felt/heard
as an acorn fell into her lap
from the oak tree

later drinking/talking/crying
watching videos on her phone
she revealed her regret
at not coming home sooner

Drenched/Drowning

I wake up
to rain drops
fallingbeating
on the tin roof,

the sky is an even grey,
on the path
brown pine needles
create a new bed,

acorns dropping
sound like gunshots,
the moss on the rocks
will be slippery later

I turn to look at the sky
out my window, raindrops
one after the other,
like drops in a can

when the rain stops
we'll step on acorns,
soak in the forest as
the damp soaks into our skin

each drop of rain
drenchesdrowns me,
but I am on my way,
will be renewed

you'd like this morning
(the sounds on our tin roof)

Subsist

the pandemic
broke me.

hardly surviving by summer,
I subsisted on
books,
weed,
writeread,
island peace,
oak leaves,
wind on water,

the soft sound
of canopies above me,

swaying
twinkling
leaning
snacking
drinking
sparkling water,

light dancing
on the ripples of waves,

the wind,
and the vastness
of the sky,

clouds swaying by
altocumulus

Nobody's Perfect

there is sugar
all over
the air again,
sapphire eyes,
scarlet lips,
and golden skin,
your laugh echoing

Across the Acres

she is fleeting,
she is healed and whole,
she is looking for a love
as bright as the cotton candy sky,
she is looking for someone with a soul
as pink as the clouds tonight,
someone to watch the world with
as the sunset fades into midnight.

she is whole,
can be seen
just as she is,
she knows
he is not enough,
but she still wants him.

she is already organizing him
into the parts she will want
and the parts that won't work,
but you cannot have
half a person.

he is looking to be his whole self,
just for him,
he will not be kept,
he will not be categorized,
he will walk the land,
he will stop to stare
at the sky.

In the Heat of July

sugar baby pie,
I'd still live in all your lies,
falling into sparking eyes,
can't see through all this haze,
your eyes are grey just like the bay,
lingering in all my days,
I see them shining through the waves,

and you're my quartz below the sky,
I'd build a cottage in your lies,
staring to familiar eyes,
I'd take up all your days,
kiss your skin in all the ways,
learn to navigate this maze.

baby you've got me,
looking up at you,
wondering if this lust is true,
this sugary sweet daze,
killing me in all the ways,
in these slow and sparkling days.

my caramel baby pie,
I want you safe between my thighs,
we'll both be breathing in the sighs,
I'm wishing for your salty taste,
your fingers wrapped around my waist,
through your grey and sparkling eyes,
forgetting all these earthly lines.

your eyes are shining in the sky,
midnight lies between my thighs,
the bay glistening sparkling wet,
since the first day that we met.

Eyes Like the Bay

pretty guys with pretty lies,
reflections of oak leaves in their eyes,

your caramel skin,
that twinkling sin.

the more I try,
the more I find
so many traces
of familiar lines,

and you’re still
selling me,
your pretty lies,
and eyes,
and lines.

the bay is twinkling in time
with the rhythm of these lies,
the sun is shining high
making deeper all the lines,
and making pretty
all these times.

that sparkling sin
reflecting in
clouds whisking by,
across the sky,

within your grey-blue eyes
you sell the prettiest of lies.

Waning Moon

My heart is a cottage,
waves wish washing,
trees rustling,
loons calling in the night

My heart is an island,
gazing at stars,
fires crackling,
sand even in the bed sheets

My heart is a cottage,
moss-covered rocks,
oak leave silhouettes,
gardner snakes slithering

My heart is an island,
the waning moon shining,
midnight rhythm of the bay,
painted turtles bobbing heads

Goodbye City Lover

Our hearts are empty rooms,
You didn’t notice a single clue,
Sat alone to watch the city sunset,
Sky warm and ombre

You’ve been cabbage growing,
Ivy browning in the sun,
You’ve been shining in the blue light,
I hardly thought you were the one.

I asked for diamonds love,
But they weren’t enough,
I asked you to stop with the names,
But it took too long,

I asked for family,
But mine was broken:
A mean mother,
Ranting sister,
Dead father,
Wandered brother,
Selfish stepmother,
Pushover stepfather,
It won’t be you, love,
It won’t be you.

I may have been broken
But I’m healing now,
This apartment was our home,
but it’s empty rooms now.

Perfect limbs
In the golden light
Of the late afternoon,
Curled up head to toe,
It wasn’t enough
To save you.

Escaped, Got Away

The bay glitters in front of me,
The wind is calm, but cold.

Little successes:
An email sent
A half hour doing yoga

And little failures:
90+ messages, texts, and emails from you,
Mocking female empowerment,
Telling me I’m not strong,

Saying you want money for the earrings,
And the Netflix subscription.

You don’t matter as much
As the sound of the waves,
Calm and constant,
The moving of the trees and clouds
By the September wind.
It shuffles and shakes the leaves
All around me.

You still have your spot
Under the skin of my chest,
But the bay glitters in front of me,
The sand warms my calloused feet,
And on this island,
I am safe from you.

I finally left you,
while back home,
the bay glistened.

Do It, Don't

here i am tripping all over my feet again -
stop, you will stop, you will stop me.
here i am tripping all over my words again.
stop, you will stop me.

the life of a student is a sad one,
the life of a poet is a sad one,
the life of a lover is a sad one.

(you have taught me to want write to again,
i thought i'd never want
to write again).
she says, do it.
i say, no, i don't want to.

Extinguish the Sun

There was that one summer
When I tried to extinguish the sun
Was so determined
I could leave you,

But you only stayed burning.
You and me, hot red cheeks
Sweltering in the heat
Of a golden afternoon

That summer we tried
To extinguish the sun,
We thought we'd watch it,
As it turned right to ash

We tried to stop its bright burn,
But we are still waiting
For billions of years to pass -
And you warm me still.

The sun is golden this morning
As I scan the shoreline
And feel the heat of you,
Shield my eyes from your glow