Sixth Poem

The meme about new baby 

announcements: good luck
On the apocalypse companion I guess
I am waiting on a pregnancy test

Three minutes to remember how it felt 

To really pray, kneeling in the church

Before it burned, eight years old 

Devoted, fervent, bathed in dusty light

Now it’s reading stars and shuffling cards

Finding lines of poetry to repeat to myself

Listening to the same song until 

I’ve memorized the breaths

The mathematics of making something 

Holy, genuflecting to my body, a church 

Vestibule, sanctuary, apse

In a year where everything is on fire

My faith in anything is running on fumes

Somehow enough molecules exist

To keep me going 

Is that hope?

To want this as much as I do

Feels like falling in love

Breaking my heart like the glass

Around something precious

Or an acid peel melting layers away

Burn off the excess

Believing what’s left is 

Worth it 

Fifth Poem

We’ll cross that bridge 

When we come to it is what I say

When I am tired of being nervous 

What I mean is when we get there

To that bridge, I will dig my heels

Like a cow going down stairs

I will want to throw up and refuse

Until I want what’s on the other side 

Bad enough and even then

I will resent that bridge so fucking much

Curse it for being built, curse this river too

I’ll stop in the middle and weep 

The worst is over you will say, as though 

Suspended midpoint, at the crux of my panic

That makes any sense at all

I know myself and how ugly it is

To watch; so excessive, the drama, the grief

I know you will want to turn away from me

In that moment and that’s why I refrain

As though by the time the precipice comes

To me, I will be someone else, stepping

Easily across the threshold

Moving through space as though gravity

Is just an idea 

Fourth Poem

 
I coax sleep into his small body

Sitting on the floor next to his bed

Sometimes it feels like witchcraft

The rain sounds like the ocean

I dreamed you texted me a clown face

My subconscious sends emojis

Dissatisfaction is like bland food

I keep eating to be polite

The moon is in Taurus

Where did I put the part of me 

That once ran through gardens

In neighborhoods I didn't live in

Dreaming, trespassing, hungry

Sometimes my baby takes my face

In his hands and says "You happy?"

I deleted this line

I delete whole conversations that embarrass me

I take a picture of the sky in May

Trying to remember without writing it down

In December I take another, it's enough

What was blooming is turning now, dust to dust

How can blue be such different temperatures

You send me a picture of rocks

I send you one of my hand 

Hoping you'll ask for more, you don't

It never happened trash can

Blue check, select all, so neat

I'll sing along to songs from fifteen years ago

I'll fill the sink

I might read something first I might

Eat in bed, I'll dull the blade, I'll close the drawer

There's a whole new year to fill 

There's miles to go, the woods dark

And lovely, sleep

Third Poem (Maria)

Do you know now

Wherever whatever you are

The threads between us hum

I try to remember their song

My fingers pinch pulling, pushing

Pixels around to find you

The sky outside your window

In 1945

Millenial ancestor work, take a walk

Down a street on google view

Mitochondria and trauma

Nodding in passing recognition

Typing and retyping

Your name and your other name

Trying to find your obituary

Your face in her face, my face

Your cuts so sharp they crossed

Continents, me learning how 

to suture them all from the future

Tracing screens now, watching

Documentaries about war reading

Textbooks, diagnoses, mythology

Folklore -- peeling garlic, peeling back

the tin of anchovies, stirring the pot

Holding out the spoon for you to taste

Second Poem (Solstice)

It is the day after solstice

Slowly more glowing minutes

Will accumulate like drops

And then spill into us 

Where will we be then? Springtime

I never loved you 

You broke my heart 

It was like drowning and loving drowning

I am safer having learned to swim

Watch me breathe in a steady rhythm now

Watch me float and kick, see how

Gracefully my arms emerge with every stroke

I never feel like drowning anymore

I ate so many flowers for you

Swallowed blossoms whole

Tried to fill myself with beauty

All I do is try try try

And when you admit it’s true 

You did love me then

The water creeps wetly back

Into my mouth, I want

To hold you there and I do

For months like a lovesick camel

Walking around full of you

My cheeks aching 

Not drowning, just remembering 

How it felt

Before I spit you out

Into the darkness of December 

Composting my foolishness

Into poems

Trying not to let myself turn

Numb to the numbers

The deaths an ocean of them

Too many drops to hold 

First Poem (Heron Poem)

The sun is setting and I am driving west
I’ve written another poem that started like this
About being heartsick—in it the sun tilts

back its throat and sets everything golden glowing 

The sky fanning the fires aflame

This is about feeling guilty, ashamed 

It would be mundane, that laundry list

Every year I get more humble and wish 

I could hug my past selves and dull their teeth

Every year my sadness is less about me

Maybe that is wisdom—being selfish

And letting it be

Finding love wherever you find it 

Over, again, seeking it out

Beauty hunting: watching the heron walk

through the muddy water slowly, watch him stalk

Then slice into the surface, catch a fish, 

Walk away; he doesn’t feel selfish

Or guilty, his needs aren’t moral issues

He doesn’t fret

“Am I doing this right?”

He focuses on his toes in the silt

The movement of the fish 

In front of him; he would say forgive yourself

Forgive yourself

Forgive yourself