She lames her ankle on the descent, finds her ever-less-corporal-self still bound by grief and pain as the light cotton shift falls to her feet
You must shower, girl, leave all the light behind
And enter into this entirely different kind of
Love story
Walk ahead, don’t look back
Never let him know how much it costs to stay
Inside the dark box of the bet he lost
For both of you
I once knew a man who was a dogged optimist, or so it seemed at the time. Sure, he spoke of darkness, but he spread a sunny optimism in every conversation he had.
Which meant that when the shadow of the Cross loomed large over us all
He had no answer
Isaiah 58
From the beginning I have only been able to see them as tiny iterations of Calvin–the cartoon, not the moral philosopher.
They lie prone in upended rows in a hand-drawn version of
The antithesis of a maternity ward
Rows of neatly labeled, perfect and tiny, dinner roll backs, so prone, exposed
No skin gun can ever save us now
For months now I have walked carefully, gingerly, with the rocking gait of the elderly, infirmed, or, in my case, feet surreptitiously lamenting for the loss of the whole–
broken heart
crepe-fine skin
Liver, spleen, lungs, and stomach all exposed
As the obligate carnivores we tended as children stalk the house now
Grown
Larger than life,
Pacing hungrily to and fro
As we eye them in dismay
Their pets now
I want rudimentary shelving in the wild backyard for the Walmart canoes
I want an art table
And an extra large button-down shirt with flecks of paint already on it
I want a shelter for the sun and shelter for the darkness
I want the trees to grow up around us, ramparts
And the tiny praying mantis to have a disproportionate number of siblings
Rain, so the river can rise above the exposed and naked roots of the
Already. Dying.
Around 9:19 Sunday morning, a group of the gleaming victorious held their trophy improbably aloft as they processed along a predetermined route–grass, soil, concrete, rock. An entire congregation of them, as exoskeletal and bronzed as their trophy, the hind-leg of an unfortunate cockroach, meaty, mute contrast to those who intend to be meticulous
As they devour all
On the eve of something from long ago I walk out into a beautiful storm, the trees bend leaves and branches–freshly laundered linens, a veil, a dress, a comforter to keep us
to words once and always
eternal
“These scales are remarkably hard to pierce,” I said to the wee brave patient as I tried and retried to reattach the wing, each stitch through layers of bright, obsidian scales
never made a sound
never whined or complained
This the cost of flight
and restoring what has been lost for so long
Darling, it should
Come as no surprise to you
I have rescued each of these from something
So shall we name them–downfall, downfall, downfall, downfall, downfall, downfall
or indelible redemption
I neglect to tell the children
Why It was I had to
trim the tangled branches,
Cut, unbraid the predatory vines snaking scars into the flesh
Of these ever watchful trees
I should have rescued long ago
Carrying Light 