rivercrow

I brown bagged all the
things and stuff you left behind:
a broken black comb,
your spare toothbrush (the blue one
I bought from Target
late, when I wasn’t sure you
were coming home). Small
memories with each–
now no reason to recall,
no need to save stuff at all.

Scientific books
say pyroclastic surges
froze the Pompeiians,
consumed their bodies, leaving
only shells, hollows.
So it is with us.
When you look at me,
I become still as marble,
but desire chars
any attempted restraint.

Oh you foolish E’s!
For you, romance is surface,
so easily visible.
For us I’s, love is
a deeply hidden cave stream
running swift, unseen.
Wound us, we ache to the core,
though the landscape’s calm.
Underground, the pressure builds
until, at last, steam erupts.
And this why you shouldn’t MBTI and choka.

With ease she laid
these bricks lying
between us.
The path runs straight
from house to tree.
The string along
which she set the pavers
hummed as she brushed it,
but the course stayed true.
One end of the guide
was screwed deep to the
house’s foundation;
the other, sunk solidly
into the ground.
She’d driven
the stake through the
snarl of roots
at the foot
of the dead loblolly pine.
Her back bowed
under […]

Boundaries are good things.
I’m trying to see where I can let you go.
You’re very close, closer than I’d dared to dream, but I don’t think you realize how near you are.
Today, the flood broke loose, washed me out. I had to close the door against it.
Found my feet, and stood again, and leaned against the […]

Westering sun blinds,
pale moon floats two fists above
earth’s curve. A finch sings.

V1: Where can dreams take us?
V2: I have been taken by a dream,
V1: Beyond the plains, beyond the mountain range
V2: Carried beyond the lands that I know–
V1: Over the deep sea where the shearwaters slide.
V2: Strange waters, strange sights, strange sounds.
V1: We are set free, released.
V2: Safe in the shell of my dream,
V1: Do we […]

If I could cradle your heart in my hands,
I could lift you over this flood
and set you lightly on a trembling dendrobium spray
high above the leaf-littered ground
cowling