EXHALING CATALYSTS

a blurry sunset with a crease

that carried nothing but the scent of brine

and something sweet,

something sitting at the edge of a pier

legs dangling above the threshold

of a secret hollow holding its breath

beneath the hours lost wondering

if there are any wildflowers

growing along the shore,

fishing at the edges of the water

for what drifted away

or something in the distance

that the wind picked up

and used in its seething

to count the stars

in a dying light.

(how do you make a home

out of absence?)

you let the salt gather on the windowsill

until it looks like frost,

until the silence takes shape

not a niche or bleak bluff, only that a high place has its lookout, knows the lay or has an idea of ways and routes and a recollection of footpaths and long-past hoofprints suggesting something

I climb the oak and hide from all For here I think not one will seek, Yet as I weigh my futures bleak She offers me her hand so small.

I keep on blinking both my eyes; She giggles at my disbelief, And when I blurt out hows and whys She offers me her hand so small.

Upon the pitfall of my grief She stands, nigh weightless and aglow. So small, yet strong; she lifts my palm, And if I want to, we can go.

I blink and come undone in calm; She offers me her hand.

lips lined of ripened melon water bound with sugared, satin berries buried inside her secret-soft breath

breath which glimmers cold gold 'twixt the barest of bare moonbeams drifting before her fairyland eyes

eyes mined from mystical stones sea-deep and sapphired whirlpools full of long-forgotten 'lore and luck

say i wrote you a love poem

just for shits and giggles—

because you would never read it

that’s the safest place to hide a body,

you know—

inside a poem no one opens

i could confess entire lifetimes in there

bury bones in metaphors

wrap my heart in butcher paper

and label it

literary device

no one would look twice

because poets are just ghosts

with notebooks

eating light

and calling it dinner

i could write about you

to your face

stand in front of you

bleeding vowels

and you would call it

“nice”

or “interesting”

or worse—

say nothing at all

do you know

what it feels like

to hand someone

a living animal

made of words

and watch them

not even notice

it’s breathing

so i learned

to write quieter

to fold entire universes

into matchboxes

to swallow symphonies

and call it a poem

the unread poet

is a cathedral

with the lights off

stained glass

no sun

pews full of silence

thick as dust

and still—

every night—

they light candles

no one will see

every night—

they ring bells

no one will hear

every night—

they write love poems

and hide them

in the walls

of a world

that only listens

to explosions

not whispers

not paper

not the slow bleeding

of a human soul

through a pen

but i am still here

still writing

like a vandal

like a saint

like a woman

setting letters on fire

and calling the ashes

poetry

because even unread

even unheard

even invisible—

the poem

still

exists

and sometimes

that has to be

like the kitchen window of my childhood home, when the evening sun fell sideways landing through the glass turning dust to fire.

i remember standing there- barefoot on cool linoleum, the backyard stretching out past the fig trees, and the cinder-block fence that held in nothing but our small idea of the world.

we were laughing at something- i don’t remember what -and that’s how it is. the words go first -while the light stays.

for a moment everything was suspended- the hum of cicadas, the slow drift of smoke from a neighbor’s burn pile, my father’s voice somewhere behind me singing to no one in particular.

and within that square of gold i believed- without effort, without question that this was it. this warmth that could not possibly end. this sky beyond the fence had chosen us for its forever.

but the light shifted, as it always does. the sun slipped lower. the room cooled- and the laughter quietly moved into memory.

love is not the years that follow. It is the way the air felt in that narrow band of evening- how your face held the sun, how my chest ached with something too large to name.

love is a window in time. -we do not live there.

Upon her elysian eyes I saw a million stars collide So I begin to ascend

Upon her torrid lips They felt like mystic rebirth Then I began to heal

Upon her inspiriting touch I became worthy of contentment Then I understood yearning

A single drop becomes a crane of shadow, unfolding its wings across the lake, turning silence into motion, stillness into pilgrimage.

I'd melt away, held so dear.

On painted smiles, a crimson stain,

To vanish there,

* a lakeside walk evokes, among a myriad other things not only rejuvenating ions but fond remembrances.

if asked, surely you could reconnect with a current’s flow,

who imbue meaning make you their marrow so little

of life you bear

to beat it down as oughts and shoulds

cants and coulds

as unidimensional selves —

a petals strewn about caught in lava flow self

groping at miracles rich as soma

ignite a buzz

I miss your last words again one evening in Glasgow when I take a different plane and the fire in the hearth burns

for someone else’s strange heart. You give such elegant voice to hopelessness, as if every grief should first of all be danceable.

Though October is our month, whenever the dark forgets me I know that you at least remember my face in the snow.

~

I sleep through your last breath one cold morning in Paris. The crowd is small but dedicated, you sing as though the world is ending

again. I bargain with all my shadows. I glue the deep sea to my spells and lay an altar to the truth that lies buried too deep now

to be recovered. It is late afternoon somewhere in the world, and someone is discovering how to dance to grief