A Signal for Respite

“Despite appearances,” she said
“I bruise deeply and easily.”

Please reserve your blows
For another day,
When she is whole and strong
And remembers how to use words.

But today, let her mourn
The involuntary passing
of her former, gentler self
Into the annals of virtue.

The Judgement of the Withered-Branch Peony Tree

The withered branch,
Come spring, was bare.

Though unfamiliar with this tree
We knew the Truth and it decreed
The dried-up womb be severed
And burned.

Humble servants, we obeyed.
We axed the gnarled limb and gave
It to the ready flames and watched
It burn, easily, proof we were right.

We succeeded. We made room
For boughs that know when they ought to bloom.

How sad, how sad,
For had we waited
We would have seen
Come darkest winter,
When we’re starving for color
And a cause for hope,

Blossoms,
On the branch
We, in our wisdom, exterminated.

Home

You are my primary cause
A hot, bright thing to make me leap and gleam.

I am sorry
I have seen the suspended egg,
full of sticky life yolk
and straining to hold fast for us.

I cannot un-sense it,
Because the sight tore something,
And created a new color impossible to forget.

Some mornings I cry because
It cannot love me as you do,
It is a chasing after the wind.

"Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."

But a stain is a stain,
And something was torn, I tell you,
And bled a new color onto my brain.

The color of not-but-almost-sorrow.

Dust to dust, it is a comfort,
I will go, sweet and soundless.

But while here, I must attend
To the silver cord, the golden bowl,
The pitcher, the wheel,
The dust, and the spirit.

But always,
You will be my primary cause
The hot, bright thing that makes me leap and gleam.

A Napkin Found Under the Diner Table

I found his paper napkin
Only half-wet from mayonnaise

"Lights out. Pronto. Mangoes 8/20."

Do you love him
Very much?

With his choice words
And penmanship so fine
And a taste for mayonnaise
I wish he were mine.