sunlight

your eyes paint me with intention

your fingers with attention

the light is warm when you look at me

i recognize our many lives

i see the precession of creation and

its as though the moments between

death and birth linger

shading everything that comes after in amber

i feel myself remembering that the light is warm when you look at me because

you are the light and you are warm

i feel myself remembering our many lives and how we’ve lived before and were apart before and came together just to leave once more. that we grow, never the same person twice, never a day the same; yet there we are every time with eyes behind a veil of light

i find myself remembering the precession of creation, remembering the it never stopped and that what walks has always walked

from life to death and death to life: you are the form of beauty sitting in the sunlight

claypots & kissing

to understand her love you have to step barefoot in the soil

and curl your toes;

you have to take the bugs back outside

january

your love came like a snow,

unnoticed

lightly melting as soon it touched me

but it kept falling, eventually settling

and the air

was muffled and

your breath was seen

and i could hear it and

the snow was falling

(and the snow was falling)

sourdough

i stand at a table of fruit and salt

where flour has painted itself into the grain

—into the grain of my hands as well, thus

i begin kneading and folding and stretching

both my arms up behind me and pressing them

down in the furrow of my shoulders

i wrap my frog legs into the bend of my lower back

evening all the creases before

breathing deeply to score my chest

ritual no. 16

songs that are tickets

on space-time busses;

the driver asks to see

the lines on my hands

ritual no. 15

the goddess of loneliness

likes to sit with lonely people

listening to their lips

for breath when no

one else would bother.

she’ll wrap her arms

around you as tight

as she can, holding you,

and telling you

she’s right here beside you,

but it’ll hurt and you

won’t know why

ritual no. 14

the night spreads

like cyan paint

against my skin. my

fingers drawing lines

again

like god is watching

me

and my cyan skin

signs a hymn signing

come— but she won’t

she doesn’t

break the silence; the god

of longing

the god

of voyeur, aren’t

we all her favorites

ritual no. 13

you’re flooding my lungs with each kiss—

and i can taste charcoal on your lips

scorching hints of what existed

beneath the water of abyss. i think you’re

afraid i’ll drown, but i’ve been breathless for

some time now

ritual no. 12

when i asked your name you spoke with words that somehow knew one day i’d have to go without you. if i’d known the color in your eyes had always been nostalgia ,

ritual no. 11

fate smiles at me with kind eyes, “have you gotten everything you asked for?”

my gaze slips from hers and draws to the flowers by her side, “and if i ask to stay here?”

her voice softens, “of course, if you’d like. but know that this entire garden is an offering. every blade of grass and each of their roots and the dirt around them and the stones beneath them are all my gifts to time. these flowers” as she reaches down and pulls on the stem, “are her favorite and i grew them for her.”

“as a price creating from nothing, everything time holds eventually dies.” her eyes now also on the flower she’s holding, “even i wouldn’t be able to escape it.” after a moment she looks back to me, “so even though all these things are timeless now, they have always been hers”