“I learned from my mama you can wash off, dry a cinnamon stick; let it be and it will roll back up.
And maybe I’m the same? I unfurl, I give my gifts;
I’m used and I look it. But wash me off, let me
dry and watch my walls recurl. I reform, I reclaim…”

“…Luck requires sacredness
(which requires a nicer word, sacracy).
I’ve learned you must ask a butterfly to beat the clouds away
and nod to the crows when you see them…”

“…raindrops after rain
have coalesced on the windchimes,
the fence, the hummingbird feeder,
like soft icicles on trees
in crystalline waiting,
like a thousand swords of Damocles…”

“…I’d lay on my back without hesitation,
skin cracking like hardened mud,
gratefully drinking drops from gray clouds.
I wouldn’t look where I was going -
close my eyes, flood, savor the flow…”

“…I notice myself breathing out
for squeezed juice stirred with sugar
in a yellow pitcher, with a wooden spoon.
I notice myself breathing in
I’ve waited so long for this harvest and
am reminded of the power in waiting…”

“…If ever there were peace,
it was a quiet, soft, clear afternoon
on the shore of a teal lake.
But you ruin it when you tell me
I’m building a fairy home.
I bite my tongue and swallow my secrets…”

“…now, instead of
driving
and heat,
you talk of bridges at dawn…”

“my visions take place on a mattress
overflowing a frame, low to the ground
where the quiet sounds of us
pour onto the floor and
spill outward the walls
lapping against dark, dirty hardwood…”

“…Pink carnations
sing “be soft with yourself”
as recollections build
while you live in a home
with someone who isn’t
as nice as you hoped…”

…”but an ancient philosopher said that
if you think of something, then it exists on some level
so I drove my car through the same old streets,
irrevocably changed and closer to you…”

“…Red wine and succulents,
impish thoughts, petulant,
a hot and wistful temperament –
my mind falls skyward
to you…”

“…You read online
after hours of aimless
staring at web pages
that Jupiter is the
closest it’s been in
fifty-nine years…”

“…I should like to lay you
in a field of tall,
wild grass,
breathing in the breeze,
hook myself to you…”

“…Dream of me like Montana bluegrass,
subtle and attuned to the
breeze around me.
I’ll dream of you like a
Westbound train pouring over its tracks…”

“…The stars couldn’t long betray that
you and I have a little of the same dust within us.
Your eyes aren’t bloodshot, but blue,
and your hair would be perfect with my fingers in it…”