WordTapestry

reprise call it satire, how i fold  tomorrow's shirt with damp palms.  creasing down  the corners, pressing them  firmly.  so that i can don  yesterday's fervor, proudly, and pretend it is mine.  turn the collar inside out so i can bite off  those loose threads-- soft prickles  bowing low.  slowly,  i tear,  leaving split ends   in their wake, the little rows furrowed, complementary, complacent. call it satire,  later,  as i slip it head on in the morning-- devotion saturated, lurid stripes.  i had folded it neatly;  i know i remember last night. and yet. and yet  i'll wear it, still.  feel the fervor,  to make it real.

briefly with impatient faith i leave incense  in your name,  the ash lingering  where it spilled-- peach fuzz  darkening my knuckles. ducked beneath the crisp air,  the opaque  of preemptive mourning-- your blunt voice i can imagine briefly, christening  each of the clouds in their slight forms.  ivory, cumulonimbus your shoulder blades cutting,  as saplings toothpicking  the sky. i squint up,  those pillars of salt  just waiting to dissolve. cirrus, fleeting; quietly, i remark as the first drops fall.  it looks like rain.

in retrospect blank page at the confessional, i can't admit to    something you always knew.  tied pages,  bound in leather. formative years  peeking through the ink blots-- smudged into  incomprehension,  those cryptids,  big and small.  strings pulled taut loop de' loop-- straining that song  at my lips. grinding teeth,  off-center, until the incisors glow translucent-- will i,  will i try again?  come closer,  won't you,  so i can whisper before the candle runs dry.  cold hearts,  but it reminds me of home,  your smile.

soliloquy   here's to  my saturday evening  vigil beneath the clouds-- a walk to nowhere with these little boats left untethered. together  on this bluebird day, we laugh, we mourn the death of summer-- it snuck up on me, that change,  creeping ivy on my shoulder.  lined up like soldiers,  those last dandelions  by the asphalt-- heads drooping,  laden with hopes.  don't think i've found  what i was searching for-- and yet you're here and i am because you are; i think i'll leave  them alone,  those flowers,  to rest  and wish in silence. 

year zero it was  a realization that came  when i looked around and found  i had no one to tell. to believe  what is given,  but i am more blood than bone-- i know that  in some place we can be whole-- maybe where the sun meets the sea,  pinprick reflections  like the shine in our eyes. where the  woodline pales, their furred tips tickling the sky. but for now don't ask me  for answers, we can  be steady and look for rapture behind the stove, twist our hair  into knots-- good luck charms to leave behind on the waiting floor. with mouths  shaped like prayers, for we are  but sinew and hope.

presence every time five minutes  too late,  making it up as I go.  take for granted the mercy of  forgotten dreams,  those imaginary intimacies  I can't explain; only love in  the form of fruit  I eat standing over the sink,  pulp slipping  from my clasped hands, if I close my eyes  long enough  I can see  the wisps of seeds returning home-- down the river,  at the mouth  of the pipes, all the silt  we shed.   life continues, beyond the peripheral, in the softness  of the riverbed and we may be late,  but we are still here.

Icarus, in the Venn Diagram tell me  why we stop before the lines converge, speaking always  in hesitation.  in the absence,  I settle for  heatstroke,  with nails cut too short,  the whispers of  false bone   across my lap.  head lolled back,  my ear to the ground.  the earth, it murmurs of old things reborn-- blueprints of  a lucid dream. tell me the story  of Daedalus  in the labyrinth,  of monsters and flight.  won't you swallow the pit  of this fruit  we call the sun-- let the seed burn  a comet, all  the  way  down. and if closure is a myth,  give me  a soft landing where the pencil lines thin,  epicenter, origin;  let me lie  in the overlap where the  ripples are born  to die. 

passing over southbound,  the geese fly  without an idea of home.  when the current slows,  is it still there-- the promised land? glide over the mountains,  anthills from above. over grey slate,  over the man-made-- plastic bags drifting, tumbleweeds through the alleys. skim over the trees,  felled and fallen. pinpricks of green among the grey hairs.  coast toward  the blue,  from the well  we sip. steadfast, we drink,  rivers slipping  through fingers.  and when the dead of night creeps over,  as lichen over rocks,  we who are far from the man-made will at least  have an idea  of stars-- imprints of light swimming in our reflection.  but for now we will drink-- the geese who have never known a word  for home,  and  we who have  too many words for nothing,  we who have never known darkness.