Sober Saturday

Your face fades into the fog of dreamscape

as I reach across the bed to still the resonant sound

of morning come too quickly.

The day between us was a

middle-passage between death and life; 

Christ’s descent to the dead, and

freeing of every soul but mine.

By the time my feet touch the floor

I feel the familiar emptiness, in

my throat, in

my belly—

another sober Saturday—

schooling me the differing textures, of

pain-avoidance and pleasure, of

thirst and gluttony, of

love and lust,

want and need.

I want you close, both 

in the nearness, and in the 

spaces in-between.

But I need you as you are,

wherever you are,

whoever you are.

Sobriety is a prayer, divining

satisfaction with what is—

in the stillness and silence

of oneself where there is nothing

else to be with but me.

Crooked Angel

Crooked angel atop the tree,

Your slanted light shines onto me

Atop my head a halo hue;

A blessing, or a broken fuse?

Crooked angel, so still and white

You brightly shine at bleak twilight,

Between the night and ‘morrow’s day

Your wings have O, so much to say

Of flight into another year, 

Of memories in quiet tears, 

Of fears and hopes stacked on the shelves,

And spaces made for brand new selves,

Once old facade drifts, lost, behind

And spirit comes revealing mine

Eternal soul come out to play—

In crooked angel kinds of ways.

Winter’s Storming

I am in spring.

You are in winter.

I sow my seeds

As you sow splinters.

I stand below,

Awe in your grandeur; 

Your eyes downcast

Perceive a voyeur.

The heavy snow

Cakes on your shoulders,

A weighted life

Makes you look older.

This night is long

But shortening soon,

Inhale deeply

Into every bloom

Of the Spirit

In the wintry wind,

That wakes you

From hibernation;

Hear her whisper

In the quiet dark,

For with it comes

A quickening spark;

To remind you

Of your leaves ablaze,

Last season when

You finessed your rage.

There will, again

Be a gathering,

After summer’s 

Sanguine smiling.

Now take my hand,

And feel it warming

The tired bones

From winter’s storming.

O, my soul

I am the father, returning

from a long day, clutching 

his rumpled sports jacket, dragging 

tired feet behind bruised ankles, bearing

the growing weight 

of a briefcase brimming with words 

on paper jostling cough drops, now leaning lazily

into the chair-back next to the bed

where you are, O, my soul;

waiting for me.

I am the mother, waiting

poised before the table lamp, silhouetted

within the kitchen window pane, peeking

through the one-way glass

of his adult world, pining

for a place to be someone seen

and known, skilled enough to shape another,

with strong hands, gone limp in the lap

where you are, O, my soul;

waiting for me.

I am the child, free

to curl into myself, free

to learn to laugh, free

to know to cry, free

to hold myself, tight-fisted

and free, to give what is not mine

back to a world that swallows 
innocence whole, dousing the hearthstone

where you are, O, my soul;

calling me home.

Re-membering

The word’s acidity

balances the body,

dissolving metal in flesh,

re-moving pins tenderly placed in tendons

where liget ligaments hung listless.

Bones never cracked open

with clear lines to re-fuse

but chipped and changed,

calcifying into sculptures my artist soul

shaped without consent.

Fragile and strong, 

these truths sewn together with skin

in the game no one signed up to play; 

so I forgot to play anyway,

to spit out grass and blood

and smile, because the dirt tastes good

after taking a kick in the teeth

and despite the pain,

it’s nice to feel 

happy.

changing shape

my middle toe is bent

crudely rubbing the top 

of my Birkenstock

flicking off the ground 

beneath my right foot

forgetting how it used to rest

on the cushion underneath

the soft skin of its waist stands awkwardly erect

posed forever downward dog

until it fuses again

with another bone

moved to relationship 

by proximity

and shared tension

by a receptive capacity for joining

and a body that fights itself

with each swell it changes shape

and i learn to recognize myself, anew

love is strong

the movement of fire, internal

bellied up and beating in the chest, rising

to guttural cry, deep and throaty.

a warrior’s love,

no fear of death, 

even life dissolves, within 

desire

: enamored,

each moment made

new by nearness.

amore è forte

mirrored by biceps and bulging breasts,

open hearts,

rendered,

empty, awaiting the piercing arrow,

dying. happy.

Something Jesus said

i am new wine

stomped on, 

the old way

and now this skin is 

too tight

like a finger pricked

i bleed through 

beading the sack

soon all of me will spill 

out

sloshing

and rimming

the hand

that drinks

seeking royal peerage

in lips stained purple
and clinging 

to a temporary
embrace

your holy kiss

And it was sunlight

Her lips parted 

like a cloudy day.

Brightness shone 

in the rose of her cheeks

as she smiled

blood blushed delight

at our parting.

Aloneness is not loneliness.

The soul desires 

itself, unmasked

unfinished and undulating 

in infinite becoming;

to see its own face

each moment

in that eternally lit room

at the center of spirit,

the intersection of all

belonging.

I took pictures

in my mind

and flipped through her pages

when I was alone.

She laughed, and it was sunlight.

She clapped her hands

She clapped her hands
to a beat no one could follow

How foolishly she looked
compressing so vigorously

a heart that stopped beating
three years ago

Heads bowed
hearts folded in prayer

She just kept clapping her hands

After the rain

Tree leaves shoot spitballs in my eye and laugh
jostling like middle-school boys
punching each other with scrawny arms

Each fist a valentine kiss
a baptismal sting

Do I see differently now?

that clouds have cleared
and raindrops pool at my feet
bleeding soil

reflecting the naked rainbow
that streaks through the yard
with a twinkle in his eye

What delight there is in the slow recovery.

of holy waterfalls from heaven
that cleanse
and merge
the imperceptible divide

What was only seen through
a squint’s slit
opens wide
in the gentle safety
of steam
rising from the sidewalk

rising from the heat of the soul
lit again
by an interior flick of
the ethereal switch

The heart’s imperceptible desire
flung wide
as an Ohio sky
after the rain

To Be Small

to be small.

a feeling in—
significance
In—

another’s eyes

relegated

negotiated

isolated

for the advantage.

to be small.

given a bar
higher than your reach

told it is 

low

expectation.

to be small.
coming

only from within 

to hide

to protect

from—
another’s eyes,
too narrow

to let your light in

too slim
to hold 

the weight of you.

Weary

She collapses on the kitchen table as you enter the room. 

Shoulders slumped like the rumpled corner of a bedsheet

one edge stretched too thin. 

This is the mold her body shapes to each day 

when the dishes are done 

and the children are in their beds, 

not asleep—not yet—still

pleading with the shadows 

for one more drink 

and one more book 

and one more minute with the light on. 

But she does not 

have one more of anything to give. 

Blurry-eyed and blinking at the clock,
she finds she’s worked too late and too long, 

again.

Leaving her office 

she turns the lock on the door 

like a DJ turns a table on a raucous Saturday night
the moment the beat drops

and an unnatural silence is held in the tension of fingers. 

Walking down the empty hallway 

echoes her own vacancy.

If books could be flowers

If books could be flowers
I’d arrange them by color
and breathe in their dusty jackets
like a lover’s gift

I’d water them with my tears
as each character was pruned
and blossomed

I’d read them in time-lapse
to shrink hours of exploration
into one minute of the day

I’d never pick the best ones
so that they might grow
to heights no one has yet dreamed

Erinyes

“Thank you,” he said.

—a self-cursed lie,
inflicted pity.

The gratitude was not in it.

dISoRDeReD 

INTENSE

I sip my coffee 

white-wristed blood-knuckled 

vengeful and wild, 

a blackened coal 

roasting to dust.

In him is rage

so small

and without destruction—

innocent exalted frenzy

collapsing into restful sleep.

But I am wanderlust

dis     placed.

passionate. fierce.

and tied haphazardly to the backyard fence.

brash and brackish

hidden

behind and between the small cracks

of a smile, “You’re welcome.”

A Wrestless Day

No one likes to be around a wrestless day.

Not the sycamore tree across the way

who thrashes the rain that won't allay,

flicking leaves into the grey ashtray

of sky seen through my home's archway;

nor the woman who deems her life blasé,

white-knuckling every word she prays

through teeth that mime a donkey's bray;

they both appear to bob and sway

on this blithering blustery wrestless day.

Up

I'm standing on my grandmother's stoop, 
just outside the front door.

My arms, the wings of an airplane, 
rigid and outstretched, 
end at clumsy fingers, clad with mitten,
pressing the glowing doorbell.

In one swooping motion as the door swings open,
the aging woman bends down,
for she hears my need for dry socks and steaming soup.

My red cheeks tell her,
and the snow whispers "The little girl is cold,"
as it rests on the hairs of my head,
as the feathers rest, fluffy and light,
on the chest of the finch, who watches me with one eye 
from the winter wild bird feeder hidden among the shrubs.

The woman draws near, 
her lips a thermometer on my forehead,
measuring how hot to make my soup.

"Oh my!" she yelps. "You poor thing."
"Come inside where it's warm." 

I am poor. 
My pockets hold no money to offer her,
in exchange for her attention.

But of course she seeks none; I am her child, 
born of the daughter from her own womb. 

She is a tower but her eyes remain at my level, 
assessing my need.

How did she make herself so small? 
And her gaze so loving?
It lifts up my heart, 
as her arms lift up my small frame at the waist
to take me inside.

She stooped, 
like the concrete stairs holding me up!
Who is like her, 
who stands so high 
but drops so low to raise me up?

PLEASE HELP

We’ve all felt it,
a stirring in the heart,
a hardening that happens
with just one quick jerk of the head,
just one look away, as we drive on by
or quickly walk past;
holding on to our purse,
clutching our wallet,
watching out of the sides of our eyes,
the scraggly man with the sign that reads,
HOMELESS AND HUNGRY
PLEASE HELP.


We’ve all felt it,
like a rusty old door with a loose spring,
BAM! The heart slams shut
at the sight of human need
written in black marker
on a dirty piece of cardboard
for all the world to see.


It’s not that we don’t care
about the man with the sign.
Some part of us cares.
It’s the same part of us that cares
that there is a war in the Sudan,
or a shooting on the other side of town,
or that our child’s classmate’s gym shoes
have holes in them. We feel guilty
that we don’t know how to do more.
And so we distance ourselves,
we care from a few steps away.


There may have been a time
when we thought we could be
a small part of changing the world
 for the better. When we felt emotions
like hope, and a stirring toward justice.
But it was a lifetime ago, when our hearts
had fewer callouses;
back when we still thought
we could make a difference,
back when we thought
we knew what love is.


But if I refuse to help that man, is there love in me?


What if  we were to believe the impossible
and do the unthinkable? What if
we believed that God is greater
than our hearts? That reteaching us
what love is, is not a problem for God.
God knows the human heart
because God made the heart
and God became human
to experience the giving and sharing
of hearts with us. What if we were
to leave “tough love” behind
after all these years
and have a love-affair
with the God who knows what love is?
We just might like it enough
that we’ll want to stay with that kind of love
forever.


Can you feel it-
that stirring in the heart,
the strange warming
that seeps in from all sides
at the recognition of love;
at the possibility
that love could be for you after all?
It is the compassionate realization
that when it all comes down to it,
we are all that man
on the side of the road,
with dirty cardboard signs
hanging from our hearts, that read
HOMELESS AND HUNGRY
PLEASE HELP.

Adapted from the sermon, "Tough Love."

invisible friend

She can't see his eyes,
round and muddy blue bubbles
of lake water mounted above a bloated grin.
 

The sky is a shark,
gray and toothy at midday.
 

Laughter splashes throughout the house:
Children imagine their futures;
adults bathe in sunny memories.
 

He bites her when no one is watching. 

The tender pale of childhood reddens under his summer heat.
She covers her heart,
shading it from his burning gaze,

presses her cheek into the earth,
imagining each blade as a whisker
on the soft and innocent face of a kitten.

She is a cat,
playfully jumping through hoops,
unaware that his actions tame her.

"I want to go inside," he says.
She always does what he wants,
so she smiles, saying nothing;
it's silly to speak to an invisible friend.

an american pastime

the batter strikes 

the side of the muffin tin

a grand slam out of

the long stretch of summer

slides onto home plate.

the crisp crowd cheers wildly

perched on wooden bleachers

outside the kitchen window

and a hodgepodge team of colored flags

clatter together in celebration 

of winter's coming chill. 

we pass by;

mouthfuls of blueberry crumble

smiling under hooded sweatshirts

from the living room chair

the scent of charred 

espresso beans

ring through 

the echo of the frozen fire alarm's

still night

by candlelight

breathing in shadows of silence

from the slowly rising chest on the sleeping dog

and the crackling glow

of a smile bent on sleep

in the cool of a long autumn evening

found from the living room chair

this life

there was a life in the

words that fell, swiftly

as a child falls

when mother's eyes blink, deftly

as the hammer falls

when father focuses his brow, solidly

as the flower falls into rhythm with the casket,

but,

this life is not in the words that swam from edge to edge of every page, pooling emotions into the description of a tear

this life is in the tear itself, and

in the drowning within it

this life is in the braille walls of concrete and skin scraping, skin deep 

into the waters alongside a pleated lounge-chair

this life is under the pale nails seen tapping this screen,

but no longer within the screen itself

snow day

your screams muffle in beige Burberry scarf,
and the chill rides down the steep incline of my neck;
this warm body is a roller-coaster of delightful terror,
smiling as the cold stings each tooth

a dog barks,
and you scream again
as his head surfaces from the fluffy white under your feet

and we laugh
the kind of laughter that echoes
like a wind-chime on a blustery winter day,
like adolescent girls blinded by sleet,
playing Marco Polo,
swimming in snow.

it is a rare diamond of a day;
the rough cut of every flake falls slanted and shimmering
through the clear glass steaming at the corners,
warming each pane in the air rising from kindled wood
inside our home, where we now sit,
swaddled in each others' arms,
leaning in to the storm.

prisoner of war

i woke
and thoughts of you exploded
with the scent of hair pressed
to nose nestling near lips 
speaking gentle words muffled 
under blushing cheeks;
the intrigue of your inviting eyes 
sparked ignition.

now pieces fall 
like you-shaped snowflakes
onto the white bed 
of an Ohio Christmas;
shrapnel cutting deep into me, 
nesting under skin, 
making a home.

the cannon fires again
from the beaches 
of your sunlit heart, 
melting fear,
and
d
 r
  i
   p
     p
       i
        n
        g
down
sweet lips,
as a dog's tongue drips 
when she's smiling 
from too much play-
from too much happiness 
in one day.

one day.
closer.
that is the gift 
of this sleepy-eyed morning
on a blurry trail
miles from my destination;
feet guided only by the stolen pin clipped
from your chest's grenade; 
the compass leading me through the tale
of my kamikaze capture by you;
of a patient imprisonment
inside the safe-house of your soul,
awaiting the day of freedom