the tape is a blur of
ordinary splendor
songs sung loud in a messy
house vivid patchwork
some mention of a circus
close to the tear in the hand-made quilt
I touch your brow
tell you
take your medicine before you go out to play
Round, pink, chewable analgesic
as you lift your head to receive the pill
Eucharist in the living room,
old and beautiful
Words for “good” and “grace”
So close to your already liturgical
Beautiful like…
A rose
A ruby
A diamond
A butterfly
A boy in flight
preoccupied
with the ghosts of children,
She
hammers nails into the wall
for improbable angels
they float above
small, intricate, perfect
real girls
each flicker just a moment then
Snuffed out
Because they were not…
Because they were not…
born boys.
I still have unanswered questions for the hand-sized catfish I pulled out of the Blanco River today.
It was caught in some debris, entangled in some fishing line.
Hard to get to.
Weirdly specific salvation (if you don’t believe in a God who sees stuck fish).
But if you do…
You wonder who was the fisher with the broken line?
When was he last here?
How long has this darkish catfish been stuck in the line?
Will it live? Line cut, hook still in?
The Gospel is chocked full of fish stories.
But they don’t all get saved, hook or no hook still stuck in the craw.
And then there is me: fished out by Jesus, standing wet in the afternoon sun, inventorying fish stories.
…. Caesar’s likeness on the coin in its belly.
….No sign but Jonah
….The empire of Rome long gone
this one small fish wriggles free
marvels at the hidden depths
in the quotidian
stories of being
fished out.
having an ordinary name
(Think cow or child’s toy)
Means misnomer–
Betty, Becky, pieces left out
Or added
My favorite-gleanor
So close
To gleaner
I ask myself
What if it was George? Harold? Londerson? Jamal?
Would I still
Recognize your voice
Trace the familiar
Lines along
Your hands, your face?
Your gaze holds firm
Your love unswerving
Written, Word
come to the dark
stones skipped along the surface
will sink into concentric ghosts
these stars
hard to measure
Line up–
School girls in bright
White dresses
Wade in
knees, waist, chest
As if they had forgotten
They are luminous,
formed of fire and light.
these interlocking pieces-
a woman in the crowd reaches out to touch
Slowing down motion
to Jairus’ daughter
Take this stranger by the hand
(For science, of course)
Blindfold emotion
-While the girl lies dying-
Somehow temporarily
All of us
nailed to this single day in history
When you let go of
Everything you had a right to hold
Go where we never
want to go
Then tell Mary
Don’t touch me
Last trace of hell still on my skin
You draw us to your
Broken.
Make us whole again
With this system of touch.
1. the grease from the hamburgers
starts a fire on the grill
smoke billows out
disturbing a previously impervious
colony of wasps
2. a smartphone next to the ballerina-slippered left foot
Of the tinier girl
plays a song about eating disorder
as the taller girl bemoans
I am scared. This is higher than you went
In the staircase of the rock wall
The tiny child raises her hands
Just hold on tight and come down
One foot at a time
And if you fall
…I will catch you
take hunger, take thirst
Go
stand in the storm
know this to be true:
Thunder, wind, rain
fall splendor from this
Cloud-dark sky
and lift these things
empty into tumult–
The way a man might lift his just-born
hunger, thirst
Once and only filled
By the God of the storm
Looks like deep
Sleep
Draped across the seat
across the bodies of these hungry
Children
Immobilizing poison
Shot into blood vessels, skin
I call to you, no answer
Try to warn you
This venal monster
Hunts then kills its prey
No answer, Sleeping Beauty
Already heroin gone
Who takes apples from strangers in a storm?
Do you believe in ever after?
All the tropes of fairy tales will not save us from
The story of a little girl trapped
In this worst kind
Of nightmare tries to call
for help
Nothing left
As the anatomical apparatus for sound and breath:
Lungs, rib cage, windpipe
Collapses beneath the weight,
The force of blows to this chest,
All alone,
Of the used-to-be
girl.
this is what I would say,
If I were your real mother–
Use the pink phone with the rubber buttons
the canned voice locked inside it
–May I help you? She would ask gamely
Each time you rang her up
She would
Drop everything
Just to hear your voice
At the other end of the line.
Carrying Light 