and wherever she is at departure
she begins with
the same luggage
tightly packed sins
folded neatly beside
longings wrapped around
desire and interests
maybe historical
memorabilia
so as she shifts from one
state of self into the next
remember the future
she wants to roll into
and model that being now
in the misty morning
we pried ourselves loose
unmasked
rinsed our dream faces
transformed
we rolled out the constricted part
in an effort toward balance
one leg at a time
finally engaged core remembered itself
and held us still
meanwhile, my mother waned
language loosened and access blurred
into a vague decision
choosing between soup and stir-fry or
an endless search for PIN codes and insurance
cautious walks across fields of goose poop
to marvel at the pond
then, my dead brother emerged as I sipped my bitter coffee
his soft gaze in the midst of forever
and a longing rose
the fervent wish that conscious and safe were possible
that Quan Yin could actually usher the final sufferer
through a gateway
that awaken would mean something brighter than morning
stronger than ozone
a permanent status update
of alive
of free
of home
into the mirror
she alters perspective in order
to salvage some coherence
amidst the whirl
of myriad personas
anger is her 3rd rail
a dangerous electricity
inhabits her low back
afternoon reflects her outline
a suspect genealogy
someone of partial remembrance
a bony contour
a hand-me-down clock
the leotard her body danced
she exchanges herself
with time emerges partial
to her own integration
before Super Bowl
or awaited rain
while desire lingered in a liminal
zone of tired out
arms of the bedside lights
folded against their crimson wall
cat curled into the curve
of knee and comforter
his snores broke the wavey
barrier of rest
that drop-off stretch
where consciousness swirls
into dreamscape a glimpse
of masks hovers near
familiar stairway just out
of reach in a shimmery pool
where French might arise
or wakefulness suddenly
disrupt the journey inward
then the windows are too
bright and the glitch of apnea
breaths irksome there is
no good spot for cat or arm
and mouthguard clenched does
not soothe nothing there
in the dark of wakeful nothing
but desire left over from over
tired resistance
and wish for merge
swish of electric brain wash
to switch mind into dream mode
and leave thought behind
I traipse through this slow
fastidious period, fibrous
and lobular, with no known cause
too stiff to split or arch
all the way behind me
too cautious to kick
box or wrestle an oiled body
into a homo-erotic clutch
sometimes, while glancing
toward the layers of my own
collage, a pang of futility
wedges between glue
and yellow formica table
then, reminded of the fleet
passage here, I lean forward
and slightly left, cross my limbs
tilt gently to one side, and smear
“YES” paste on the back of an opaque
doorway, glue a blue flower
below a small pink rose
Into my childhood room,
pink gingham, flowers and ruffles,
the moon shone, the street lamp glowed.
In those early days, the light felt mine,
felt honest, felt somewhere possible.
It peered into the double paned windows,
beamed onto street, fire hydrant, driveway.
That light was a smiling light, a familiar light,
a night glow. Its after dark shine streamed
warm into my eyes as I drifted toward dream.
Later, the moon and I waxed
and waned together. We synchronized.
My bloated emotions swelled
under the moon’s growing round
expanded with the increasing circumference.
And when I bled, the moon began to ebb.
It took until my late 20‘s to calculate my cycles
with the lunar cycles. I could feel the expansion
of my waters, the rising tides of emotional intensity,
the eruptive drama of full-moon. And then the wane,
in a sweet mellowing from crazy wrath to peaceful joy,
from extreme distraught
to mellow pleasure, my middle years
swelled and flowed with moonlight.
Now, as the wane of hormones circles
into longer cycles, as my ovaries
sputter and decline surge, I ride
a more even keel from one moon to the next
still note magnetic pull
as moon fits its light into darkness,
and appreciate the white-beam power
But my body does not respond in literal assent.
I have stepped to the sidelines of luminescent
dominion to more objective light.
A glimmer within.
a blip on the meninges
sends her into dark
spinal frenzy
she can hardly twist
to look over
the shoulder
of this road
where bluffs erode
into a cacophonous sea
so many birds
lift in unison
caw as they pass
swoop through
the deafening spray
she determines the ligaments
where inflammation
could mean growth
holds tight to the perverse
possibility that stiffness
might serve her better
than accommodation has
might help her build
fire walls to guard
against the tides
slammed against
the edges of this land
the injury to her hyoid
bone caused a constant
choke hold
she’d swallow as if
the cherry pit she felt
were natural
as if the strangle hold
were a phantom limb
extracted from her neck
and swallowed
the fear lodged itself
in her omohyoid
and her shoulders
pulled forward
chin jutted
still, over the brambled years
she could imagine him
slamming his body
toward her soft palette
the viscous saltiness
thick on the back
of her throat
she rarely cried out after that
but swallowed her pain
and shouldered
insistent shoves
relentless demands
hands pushing her
head down
hands clouding
like a softly drugged
mind-set, the open
channel she vaguely
remembered
on her crown
into the mirror she alters
perspective in order
to salvage some coherence
amidst the whirl
of myriad personas
anger is her 3rd rail
a dangerous electricity
inhabits her low back
afternoon reflects her outline
a suspect genealogy
someone of partial remembrance
a bony contour
a hand-me-down clock
the leotard her body danced
she exchanges herself with time
emerges partial
to her own integration
mistook pride
for contempt in
an on-line quiz
sneer of self-importance
vs. inward smile
EQ mastery
via actors’ expressions
how to imply rage
without eyes leveled
vehement dart of distrust or
how to convert camera
into love by a turn
of the cheek a glance
into discerning lens
part of what we know
is a translation from
remark to sensate
therein the chemistry
secreted messages
interface with breath
mood emerges