Cocoon

A fat, false-eyed caterpillar consumed Liberty
inexorably, leaf-by-leaf, stripped her bare
leaving a hardened chrysalis-nation spinning
hypnotically in a chill global wind.

Beneath layered fear and isolation
truth and freedom have been transformed
into a black, all-knowing moth
with wings wide enough
to obliterate dissention.

Driving

We think the past vapor, faded
ghosts unworthy of resurrection or introspection
dissipating behind us as we speed recklessly
into the future, heads out the window
hair afire, eyes streaming impotent tears of woe and joy.
It doesn’t seem worth the effort to pull over and reflect
far easier to squander our souls, to taste the black
drag of criticism, ridicule, stale fear, to believe the doubting
chorus singing monotonously in the background
until we arrive in the middle of nowhere, wondering
how we ended up so far from our own truth.
It is in this solitary place we remember
ourselves, unchanged and immutable
cradled delusions evaporate
burning possibility lingers
like sweet, unforgettable perfume.

Story Bracelet

Bone and walrus tusk
encircle my wrist
in memory of you,
on each square
a scrimshaw picture,
joined, they tell a story:

a hunter leaves home, alone
on the ice, he navigates
the tender under-skin of my arm,
tracks and shoots a seal,
attaches rope and hauls it back
to the polished beginning.

Your story does not circle
it ends in sea and tears;
that day, Grief
took up sharpened antler
and carved your life
into the curve of mine.

Curl

Each curl of conversation
stills my tongue, half-sentences
stranded in the mire
of biting reason

words silently form
protests, defenses
reasons and intentions

worthless to ears already fed
with the insistent conundrum
accompanying every attempt
at reconciliation.

Old Dog

He grows more beautiful every day
his wizened face, yellow coat
fading to white. He is both stately
and goofy in equal parts, a loving soul
who never had an enemy, human or beast.

Last fall it was hard to tell he wasn’t a puppy,
now he’s eleven, seventy-seven in dog years,
his hips stiffen during the night and into morning,
though after coffee, he’s still up and begging for a walk.

I put my hand on his chest; feel his heart, gently
rocking under my palm. I whisper in his ear, ask
him to stay with us a while longer -

he sighs, deeply, resonantly.

Cry

Tears
deemed too self-indulgent
discipline the set of my jaw

At the crosswalk, a teenage boy
scans both ways, nervously
waiting for cars to notice him

planted solidly on the other side,
she holds the tether of her love
as an invisible guide

eyes locked, he launches
off the curb and rapidly tastes
a hard-won sliver of freedom

he is taller than the woman,
a little boy in a man’s body, his arm
around her shoulder, his smile a blessing

joyful
reason enough
to cry.

Mourning Cloak

The thaw begins with a drip,
builds to a roar, subsides to sunlight
prisms playing over silver eddies

brushing still-wet velvet wings;
maroon and yellow, neon blue,
pseudo-bark underneath

in the clear-cut, pink fireweed
pierces a sky alive with souls
reveling in their last year on earth

sampling nectar with newly-curled
tongues while summer degrades
to fall, burrowing in the cool

damp cord of fir put up for winter,
awakening in spring, tasting early
summer before the reprieve

is over, time come to fold
worn and battered wings, to slip
free of this mourning cloak and rise.

Faith

Cormorants face east
to blood-rimmed clouds
holding the morning hostage

angled wings await
silver resonance humming
through weighted bone,
bound by eternally rising sun.

Azure Spring

sun dries pale
whorled wings

the breeze teases
elevating blue

spring rises
yellow and hazy

with sex, frantic
primal propagation

a brief flush
of perfect intensity