Literary Astrographer

the big little bang theory: wondering what sound stars make
when they shoot, and is a shooting star
an act of constellatory aggression? who are they
shooting at, and with what? maybe they only get one word and it's BANG


or maybe the stars look
down on us at night and whisper
did you know those tiny flickering lights
burned out long ago?

it's just that we don't speak the same language
you, me, and the stars, and there are
no translators or mediators to tell a rock
what a raindrop is crying about, let alone a pulsing distant sun

and the air I push out shaped in words
has been distorted from synapse to sound
there is no purity in language
and one never equals one

every metaphor
a loaded / unloaded
gun:
unbang.

contradistinction

Being soft for you

is hard for me

yet you say

giving in

is not the levee cracking

but a chance to build

my body

braced to fight,

shudders,

threatens to crumble

under your lightest touch

if you break me,

you promise,

it will be 

like a wild horse

not a fragile vase

and what feels like 

pitiful weakness

is my greatest strength

Theme and Variations

(After Beethoven's Piano Sonata no. 30 in E major)

It's dark, late evening.
Light wind through the elms.
The air smells like rain.

1.
That windy evening in the park.
Why don't we climb? you said.
We sat on a branch, low in the massive pine
and lost count of the times we kissed.

2.
Talk to me, I said
after one of those long, hot days.
Evenings on the balcony we'd wait
for any small movement of air.

3.
Two a.m. and you weren't there
beside me in the dark bed.
You were somewhere on the roadside
waiting out the blinding rain.
I lay awake, imagining calamities.

4.
It was almost dark when we walked
home in the rain. I said because
I love you, but couldn't explain
how that answered the question.

5.
We brought home takeout chicken,
drank a toast and talked till late.
Lit candles and turned out the lights.

6.
Late evening. It's dark.
You at your desk. I pass
behind you, stop
to touch your hair.
There's a light wind in the elms.
The air smells like rain.

Appearances

Through the car window, a coyote
standing still in an empty field.

Once, a glimpse of a slender brown animal
slipping into the undergrowth

and once, the banner of a skunk's tail
in the tall grass.

In the bushes, a rustle of something fleeing
as footsteps pass too near.

So rare, that permission to look long,
to take in the blunt shape of a head,

the way wet hairs spike together
on a furred back. The tail's propulsion.

If you could fade, escape notice.
Become a tree, a shadow.


A brief sighting you try to interpret.
You look and look after it's gone.

Gardening

The woman fears she

will no longer be able

to do what she loves.

An apartment for adults with autism is being built

next door. The camera

zooms in on her white

knuckles as she pulls

one last weed

from her backyard.

Unwinter

Grey spring, crawling
out from under the snowbanks with undulating
limbs, a blind tick seeking
summer-skinned heat. Fingered
by frigid winds,a moon-cool

sun. Winter floured the boards
pervasively with dust, rolled
everything flat, a thin and cracking
crust reverberant with promise
of sour small berries and narrow green

apples, black-specked and worm-eaten. Birds
shrill at all hours from bare
branches, and do not build
nests. We are slashed tires and cracked
cellos. Unrinsed wine glasses left

overnight on the table.

Unbottled joy (an ode to Prozac)

if future pain

should point a sideways finger

at this encapsulated zest

forgive the risk I took

to see you blow me a kiss

throw yourself into the wake

of bygone boats

chest out with squeals of

catch me

where weeks ago

were covered ears & eyes & tears

in corners where

even the TV looked dark

bursting with

God’s got it

today you twirl your way

to the altar  

throwing arms wide

for Jesus

a yes grown flesh

motherhood: denied

they couldn't have my womb, I said,

through the popping pain of cherry cysts

moon after month after year.

it is mine, it is me

where possibility lives, I said,

in hope and in pain.

scars now hold it in place, womb

melded to muscle and fibroids,

to organs less important to me than -

now I await menopause in hope

that these days in pain might go away (?).

lying in bed these many hours

frida keeps me company,

and between sweating bouts of agony

I rise to give birth with words or paint

to my babies, determined that my centre too 

can be whole and give birth to beauty.

*the 2nd piece for my collage, a picture of Frida Kahlo