RebeccaPrompted

you give the big man his show

we bent the rushes their heads flung back they slid apart trailed along our hips we broke the water sent the silence rippling into eddies

I can till my own back forty til the soil breaks into meteors stars and cow shit leavings of tomato plants plastic spoons and party streamers rocks that used to hold the roses separate from the weeds fly up cut me tilling to the center of a story that goes down and down again to make another slash at writing borders onto people we don't know and to line up rocks and bricks pretending that they matter that they separate or build up any more than words any more than letters lines and space and jots on paper fibers

#Link

#Naruto and the Anbu Black Ops

My fortune was a tawny boy who sang himself to sleep. He ran behind his father to the market, brought us dripping bags of olives bulging bigger than his cheeks. One buckle on his left shoe dangled trailing in the filth, and so I used to scold and make him wipe the floor. Isn't it funny that I want to find his shoe? I can't. I can't. And I can't find him in the market among broken glass and boards, or see him weaving through the bodies on the ground. I will not call this empty doll my son this weight upon my arms that neither sings nor runs, nor cries. I will not bear it. I will shutter up my windows and my daughters in their sheets, and tuck away the ornaments that chimed beneath the awning paint my blood on post and pillar, lay my bones in sacrifice to the god who guards the rich man in his tower made of sand, to the god who pays me rubble for my gold.

one more for the taste of sawdust on your neck and two paint cans cracking open in the corner (they were smiling) it's for yellow lights on poles that called up moth clouds and mosquitoes, but still let us see the stars from the plywood door another for the hum wood glue, turpentine, and menthol on your clothes black fingers creases and the spokes of a small red bike what was that song? this one's for the buzz of a work lamp humming on with you this is for your body on a pile of spattered sheets paint and sawdust and the words to some old song I never heard above the rumble in your chest

If I were a rich man, I would lay me down among the gulls and terns along the shore, and open up my eyes to the wayward stars far-flinging over moons and worlds and galaxies. If I were a rich man, if I were the sum of all things great and strong and glorious, I would bury my feet in sand and stone, and let the surf wash all my earthen flesh to bone.

we will step down when you have lain aside your armored vests and shown us you bleed too we will stay our marching feet the day you tell us why we all amount to something less than cattle you must cull we put aside our gasoline and stifle our red embers at the very moment that you make one single barefoot clear-eyed step toward us with your hands over your head with your helmet on the ground with a single note of sorrow in your words

stay if you can just until starling sees her hatchlings fly away hold the rope we tied to the wagon handle pull with me a load of empty cans and bell jars shining like Camelot

did you know that I would find my feet again on this shale road-- dozen razors in the bathtub left to rust another month did you carry on daydreaming that my binges would dissolve like too much sugar in the tea, the burdened green of summers spent at home did you hang the eyelet curtains to remind me how I cried when Nana prayed did you know I would live long enough to love you?

Our pages creak like cargo nets that sink over the hold. And we are cutting loose the ties that anchor bolts, to chains, to words-- small clauses, crates of eulogies crash down and break apart, and with their clanging call up shipwrecked songs, and wake the deep

"When will we go home?"

Well, our inheritance, it wasn't more than dirt and trees, so what's the point of filing that-- do it alphabetically, with taxes? Light up a W-2. Pass down that scoop on Brangelina, man. This is where our history book leads.

Dear dirt, It's been a while since we sat together. Once upon a time I would have stuffed a few handfuls straight into my mouth, that crunch and grit and instant petrichor washed down with a swallow of pond water. (Those were the days, right?) Not sure what happened in between those weeks of blackened feet and lighter soul, but I remember how the softness of brown warmth beneath my outstretched legs could make the biting flies pipe down to a humble, steady buzzing could ease away the ache of a good long run through leaning woods. And now I've grown away from dust and worms and dandelion leaves I've grown so tall my head is swimming somewhere in the clean, clear air, and I don't know... I just don't know if I like it there. It's so rich and grey in oxygen. And there's a heady hint of smoke and car exhaust and also rain, sometimes. It's nice. But I would like just for today to sink my toes beneath your blanket and to share the warmth you gave me when my feet were small and calloused. Just for today. You understand? Please. Rebecca