There is no particular sound
that rustles through the trees,
different from the music
we listen to.
different than the sounds
our hearts are used to.
Your hands grab and hold me
like I have somewhere
better to be,
fingers interwoven
against the middle
of my back,
like tiny branches,
like this is where you
planned to be,
settling deeper
into my chest.
I press my lips to your forehead,
a place filled with dark honey
surrounded by mahogany oak,
where dreams sit and they soak
until they are sticky and ripe.
I kiss you like
the night has no end,
like your bones have endless marrow,
like there isn’t another you.
Your arms are still.
Your lips say nothing.
There is no particular sound
that rustles through the trees,
no different than how
my heartbeat
thumps against yours.
I wish I could’ve met you
That you could’ve told me stories about your childhood, your family, anything
I wish we could’ve had coffee together, or a breakfast as foreign to me as everyday-bacon
Maybe sausage, Virginia-style! Or Carolina grits, anything!
I got too many missed chances with folks,
I had absolutely no chance of gettin’ to know you
I pray you were enough of a God-fearin’ man, pray Heaven is where you are
Maybe we could meet there, or maybe we were never meant to know of each other
Only God knows.
She leaves for the south
never to see home again.
The winds are at her back.
Red rock valleys roll and release
into the unfurled fields and flowers
The Great Plains stretch out to define
the sawtooth Appalachian Mountains.
Her message has a mighty meaning.
She signals health and happiness.
Hers is a journey says to all,
Fertile is the future.
She rests on the corn plant.
A chemical rain descends.
Blisters begin on the wings.
The burning knocks her down.
Her flight falls furiously.
Her antenna curl over her eyes.
Tumbling and crashing,
her migration, invisible.
He headed to the north.
leaving a sailor’s life.
His family’s fishing ship.
an empty catch.
Searching for a home,
a white ghost forest watches him walk.
Concerned from the grave
their roots, ocean salted.
On day thirty, his breath shortens.
He lies on the ground.
Sees the burnt butterfly, eye to eye.
He buries the dead monarch.
Dirt over the wings
Blesses her and thinks,
We are all foreign somewhere
First, we would load up the car, with salty
sunflower seeds in our pockets and thermos’
in hand, and when we took to the lot
we used buckets that we filled with blackberries
bursting in the August sun. We took them home,
and sat purple mouthed with fingers
bramble-worn from the pricking, as grandma
cooked them with sugar in a big pot, and the next
morning it was my job to help get the biscuits done.
Then we’d open a jar and pry the wax from the top,
and sometimes chew it up like gum, but only after
we got to the good stuff at the bottom.
I loved the way you did that almost-smile —
One eyebrow cocked in pretend surprise, or scorn.
You didn’t just have come-to-bed eyes —
you had come-devour-me eyes.
Yet we could not.
Shackled by respect for responsibility,
the affair was just in my head —
Was it in yours too?
I saw the way your eyes traced
the contours of my body,
and lingered in places.
You took up space.
Inhabited it fully.
You were the steady beat of my heart —
a heart-shaped drum.
Your rhythm grounded me,
like djembe hands in ceremony,
like calabash and breath
in ancestral echoes.
I loved your fierce loyalty,
your kindness and your courage,
your honour and your humour —
And yes, your sin too.
I saw I tempted you.
You were strong in your faith,
your moral compass true north.
I was magnetic south,
pulling the tide toward longing,
but we held fast.
You cooked with joy,
you walked like an elder of your own tribe —
rooted and present.
You laughed like home.
You listened like a griot
guarding stories in the bones of your soul.
We danced in silence,
burned in restraint,
and never kissed —
but oh, how my spirit did.
Now when I hear the beat,
steady and soft —
like quiet drums in a village far away —
I know you are still here,
keeping time.
Cut the sleeves of my shirt,
Cut the petals off the branches.
Gardening six whiskeys deep
I accidentally sheared the tops off all the roses.
A dark excuse within the brambles,
Leftover thorns along the roots.
Truth elixirs and million dollar venoms.
Smoke rises round a white streaked hat brim.
I’m rare like a steak is rare.
The orange snap of fat on coals
Punctuates two backyards away.
Jasper irises and carmine nails,
Where the vines grow wild
She’s laid out on her lawn chair in the shade.
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