today I thought

today I thought of you because today
on the radio, the garbled chatter noise, news
reported a man climbed the highest peak in Wales
wearing just his superman underwear.
his hubris, like yours, climaxed to hyperthermia
and it will remain frozen in mastodon time.

today I thought of you so I wrapped up tighter
in my denial blanket: new job, new car, new house,
new cat, new husband, new life, new day
only thing not new is that quilt I stole from your parents
and I thought of what you thought, but realized
nothing's changed: you're probably just thinking of you.

i long to long no longer

Sequestered to the silent fringes,
i'm just a lowly and earthen worm
thirsting to wriggle into the depths
of the dark musty soil of your soul.

Wasted my time fingering tall grass fields
wishing posey petal friendly faces lifted up
or the misty, foggy dew bounty hovering cool
across your solitude and webbed mind.

Exiled past the thin wire fence edges
i'm just a looming caw of raven, sharp
beady-eye watching the lacey filigree branches
layered and stretching your forest chest.

To dream i am welcomed into your heart,
its tiny mossy cottage, moist and lush
i 'd termite burrow into the wooden planks
and, finally, i might find a peaceful home.

pious devotion

Kismet smile tickle
the small of my back
then the arch of my feet,
fingers dance down my spine
cracking to soft squeals
delightful, little ants squirm
Cratos strength underneath
I feel porcelain, dainty, fragile
yet ferocious as a lion tamer.

patriotic

Lovely is wanting to pull
each golden, sunny hair
sprouting from your arm,
devine amber waves of grain.
They say, to not focus on details
you'll miss the forest for the trees.
But I'm scared, I'll miss the man
for the grizzly beast instead.

Jacques Cousteau

It's depth and dank, my pliable mouth
diving deeper, opening wider, salty-
anemone under belly, soft and ridged.
Fill my gills! I can breathe underwater!
I am sponge; I am mollusk; I have tentacles
brimming with life, torrential downpour
saliva glistening, streaming, tethering me
to the Silent World, the Coral Sea,
the aquatic dream that's you:
thick eel, electric and gagging
sea urchin prickle of pubic hair
shiny, slick dolphin skin, my exploration done.

the microbe me in vapid cosmos

i got lost in a tree today;
it's micro-chasm world
moss lush, green sprung up
like fairy-ring mushrooms
in warm, moist weather.
deep ravine bark, cleft
miniscule, delicate creations
blooming upright, but small:
tiny-dainty-little fungus
bobble head poking through
umbrella, weathering the storm
so small,it never gets seen
am i the first to greet him?

i believe
i wish to be so small.
i'd slide down the itsy ravines
sip from droplets, dine and dash
in velvet forest mist, i'd lie
live and die in the hollow
silently and unnoticed
and be as i really am
trifling and low.

the doubts which whisper in my ear

Fleeting doubts are formless and hushed. They crackle like kindling but not like a fire; just a weak undercurrent of sound in my mind. Regret rings faint like the weezing whistle of my nose as I breathe heavy into the pillow just hoping to suffocate. Murmurs, unintelligible and breathless, like when you tried to talk through your neck.  Oh yes, I do have my momentary doubts. Swift as currents they pass. Cars sound like waves as they pass by on the highway. Fast. My doubts pass the same way too. Too quick to read the license plate. Was that a vanity plate or what? I would dive in the street if it would fix everything but sometimes it's just a total wreck, a salvage yard reject. We were happy once. Right? But even my doubt I doubt. Like, really Caroline....can you name a date? a time? a place? Blank. Silent. It had to have happened-why else would I stay? But it's just like the thousands of sentences I think I said aloud to you but instead doubt crept in slinky as a cat, because you didn't respond. Did you ignore me? Did you not hear me? Or was it that I only imagined speaking? The doubt overshadows it. Then I doubt again. He will be rebuilt. As machine on bone; as metal on flesh; as I breathe and die; science will defy God and make that man live again. Live in limbo, purgatory, live to find me out; holding his ventilated breath till the next foot drop... Till the mortar erodes, and if I had stayed, I'd be the one pouring the water. I'd be the creek that made the Grand Canyon. I'd feed him his poison because my voice wavers to say no. I'd empty out my bank account drop by drop to form the creek and drown him in my own tears when I saw the ripe fruits of my labor. But that's not what happened. Elusive. I'm hallucinating. Was it dreaming then or now? Was I dreaming when I said I love him or when I said I still love him? Was I lying or dreaming? Because I left him before that. And now he is getting better. The fire that fueled his recovery-his anger- will be the fire that burns me at the stake. I'm a witch. Haunted by ghosts that live. Can a man in a wheelchair chase you in your dreams? No. I know the answer is no....and my voice wavers even at that no. Doubt. Whose love child is this divorce, bastardized and waiting to breech and wail and be split in two by the judge, the Biblical and Holy and Wise King David on St. Patrick's Day? This is my undoing. The doubts which caged my no. The fears which locked me in patterns, wefts. Teeter Totter; pull and push; apprehension and hesitation. Just barely a second. A tick of the big hand from six to seven. Ringing in my ears but muted. Like a cough from the balcony in a live recording. Like my wedding ring when I opened the box which I forgot it was in. It's not even loud here like I thought it would be because I even doubt my doubts the rare moment I even can hear one.