Persephone

 

What does the dawn taste like?

She prunes the asphodel upon the lawn;

delicate, grafted, littered,

pigmented fiction in

indigo rivets of soil.

​

Pockets of seedlings prowl

like pressure points

where the wisteria

extends, crawls

up, up, up

into the thatched, lonely roof

snaking along crevices as strands

in tiny rivulets of dew.

​

Droplets, momentary motifs

of pleasure points

in a dystopian daydream.

The tide restores itself—

the water rises—

the droplets fall—

​

we’re all poured out

into the solace of knowing

that everything grows.

​

Life, as it would have it,

continues to pour itself

out, out, out

until the night returns, 

and she learns to let it live.

​

Dawn Chorus

​

Chirp, chirp, chirp.

Gaze slowly falls over the crumbs collected.

Baggage, painted underneath eyes.  

Hair, poignantly wrapped around a thought.

Morning pains as the sunlight reigns

between the dusted blinds.

 

Chirp, chirp, chirp.

Thinning nails, worn from the

damage of bitter teeth

casting all anxiety on the beds

of cuticles and empty emotions.

 

“Don’t sing for me!”

Eyes flit momentarily through

the looking glass

as a faint outline of red

perches beneath the windowsill.

 

Quaint—

in the home where nothing was remembered

but unfinished plates

and piles of grime buried

beneath a layer of foam and

forgetfulness.

 

“Don’t sing for me!”

The melody stretches and sinks

into the suds,

the hands, cracked and swallowed hole.

Fingers, that used to feign music

on a six string in

calloused six-eight meter.  

But now the tune fades

behind the smell of

bleach and eucalyptus to purify

the note of absence.

​

Untitled 

​

She paints

October’s solace

in retrospective:

leaves, lives. 

Color elucidates

the texture of reality.

                   Iridescent and resolute—

                   a soliloquy of strokes

                   each piece of

                   untouched cream

creases

with explanation:

​

                    nothing is sacred in the margin of canvas and acrylic.

​

No order, 

no boundary, 

       no

       have to, 

       need to, 

      should have, 

      could have. 

​

The shutter collapses.

A portrait pixilates, 

untouchable.

Eternity’s glimpse

in a 5x7

​

Morning Breath 

​

I don’t want the dizzying palette of the night. 

I want to know what you

taste like

first thing in the morning

before the sun rises, 

when dreams meet the fringe, 

the seam between the real and now. 

To hear you whisper, “let me wake you up,”

and jolt at the brush of fingertips. 

The sweet chill of your nose

down my spine

traces a crevice

that can never be filled by another. 

My hands mourn the distance;

they regret every inch of skin yet to consume.

Your sweet morning breath

is imbued upon my lips

like honey, 

a taste so distinctly

sticky and salacious

with nothing but sunbeams and silhouettes to satiate.

​

​

Leave Room to Grow 

​

Return to

your roots, 

and they will

serve you.

​

Give water

to the things you love,

and watch them

bloom.

 

Take time to talk to the branches, 

the flowers—

encourage the

notion of new dreams,

because the soil is fertile,

and every idea beckons as

the sunlight unfolds. 

​

Listen—

        pause for what you

        need to grow,

        and as this season ends

the roots,

buried deep and resilient,

 

will have the

     time,

     strength,

     and sustenance

to return to you

what you need.

 

​

​

Kindling for the muse, fire for the artist.

 

Fragile inconsistency

means

you’ve had enough of me;

My spirit on fire

and your soul

a canvas, 

but the embers

ate at every

edge

and the frame

singed

                        till its death.

 

I wish the

paint didn’t

dry—

                        the idea of you

                        withered,

                        immortally 

                        imbued to the

fringe of my memory.

 

Your words

are sparks

in my rearview mirror:

 

                        too slow to see,

                        too fast to tether.

 

I only catch you

when I am asleep,

and the flame, subsided.

​

I’ll be so blue.

 

Blue,

like the endless stream of horizon

when I met you, it was still blue—

hadn’t faded with the crisp, crease of

dusk, bleeding out colors like

the anatomy of my soul in

kaleidoscope cautious clouds.

 

Blue,

like the fork in the road that I blinked back

from my frosty windshield, wondering

if the choice was ever one to make or experience—

 

Blue,

like the color of the pen that I’ll use to remember.

Recall the way the word ‘gem’ fit on your lips like

a weapon:

            “You’re such a gem.”

Though the clock was running

out, and the second hand tips

me over like the waxing of the moon

on the night before the sky cleared—

 

Blue,

my bittersweet laugh because it’s all that I am now.

 

I miss you, even when I don’t realize what it is to miss

someone who is still here—

 

and I’ll be so

blue, blue, blue

thinking about it.

​