as the banjo dies

She's always been small and meek

but now she grows demure and weak.

Our little pygmy, bonsai girl,

rolled in a ball, hidden in the drawer

like a tiny little pearl.

When she dies, we will grieve and

smash her bowl on the floor.

Scattered pieces like scattered ashes

the mass fire she seems even smaller,

cremated with all the others

in the industrial bowels

anonymous and nameless

how we do the animals.

her ghost still visits me 12 years and counting

Her harmonica sounds pour out the speakers

as coffee pours in cups, it's early morning rise-

Sun rise. Hoosier trees shrug off their leaves

as I shrugged off her whispering songs.

We sit ear to ear in the car. Our split hairs 

holding hands, fragile touch across time.

Please don't let go. Don't leave me.

 

We drive through traffic jams of

International Harvesters and drunk drivers,

passing the flags of our home:

Don't tread on me, thin blue line,

air force, trump 2024, and mia/pow.

 

I bleed cause there’s no baby in me and

You bled America till you lay dead.

No purple heart for those left like me.

No award for being alive and alone. 

Set against a pastel Indiana sky

my winter sorrow counts down to Spring:

1. What happens?

2. What happens?

3. What happens when all the witnesses are dead?

Or I move far away to garner more accolades, 

papers of worth, out of my original context, 

set the scene, actors and roles. "Places, People!"

 

Do West Virginia mountains know my fears

as well as the molded stock room of a then restaurant

now demolished, now a vacant parking lot,

but rich with my memories?

Where does the history that only I know go

when everything else is gone?

Aries Full Moon

Sometimes the full moon shines so bright, Like it did tonight. It's light shines through piercing a fleecy blanket of clouds so the sky glows soft and supple and illuminates the ground.

The wind blows so powerful, purposeful, that

I am baptized by the crisp air and

my pink skin is cleaned till I feel no cold.

Trees whisper their secrets around me.

Leaves caressing each other;

stroking to the rhythmic flow of the wind.

I am alone but never alone.

The ghosts of my thoughts, 

spirits of the past, they always loom.

Over my head, beyond my hands,

touching my face and licking my tears.

Drink up. Drink my sorrow. Kiss my feet.

Hold my weight. Strengthen these bones.

Fortify my heart. Enrich my blood.

Heal these fleshy organs. Restore my eyes.

And I never feel that sad again.

i feel wild

 

There's pressure behind my eyes

It's not quite crying but straining

Not sad or happy, It's bittersweet

Grapefruit tart puckered face

Anxiety when meeting a slow pace

Fear of touching trees, muddy knees,

I want to walk on hooves, 

And the earth could reply 

Clicks and clacks, crunch and crush

Want to nibble on carrots and

Pretend I'm a deer

But no secret place

No where to go, where to hide,

No Space to bend my mouth to the ground

Delicately pick up food with my teeth.

To nosh and grind, sputter particles about

Never be human, or be human but not

Groped and groomed by society and such.

hermit crab life

I wonder how my mom lived
pouring her soul into the same,
small vessel day after day;
Fitting into the confines of choices
made years ago, when
consequences were just
ephemeral dreams.

And how can I, now in my own,
slightly larger and spacious surely
more refined, life continue to live
in structures I chose years ago?

Or more wildly curious, venture
to wonder how I might pour myself
out to flow through caverns,
rain onto gardens, linger as a cool
opaque forest mist, quench thirst, or
sit on grass like morning dew
....just exist.

in 20 years nothing changes

twenty years ago I was thirteen
vomiting my feelings and heart
out into an electronic void,
praying for an echo of voices
to welcome
me home
to the darkness
to the dim
night highs
where i am seen
and heard.

family ties

i sink into quilted generational patterns,
hemmed and sewn black holes,
patched together piecemeal inheritance.
you shells of humans, empty casings, breeding
without home, without foundation, without
reason, blindly follow the path laid out
-you made me.

i am driving through winterscapes
imagining my escape, vast white stretches
of scattered farms with possible hearths and
inside families, cozy and safe, and yet
distant, i am the dank boglike soil
rich under-foot, under snow.

trees nourished by its decay,
it's peat, it's me, wet and dark beneath,
keep me buried and i will feed the trees
you will rest under branches drenched in
my sweat and hot tears and rot.

shovel me up and the steam freezes
midair, i am alone, i am curled in the pattern
i spiraling the same filigree, DNA
structures and ladders.
and climbing is hard.
i just spin and spin and reweave the same section
same as my family, you, did before.