telescope

If you offered me your home
I would curl up in your bed.

Turn out the light
And feel you sleeping in another room-
Your pillow pressed against my head.

When the sun rises
You will hold me again.

So drifting to sleep
I ponder the dawn
And how I've never really seen the sun.

Never stared directly into its blaze.
Even veiled by the eclipse
I hid my eyes.

For now
We peer dimly through a mirror,
Pressed up against the glass
In wonder.

A room away,
Averted gaze-
Then we shall see face to face.

And I'll stare straight into
The mystery of you,
Unafraid.

For now
There's no way you could love me more
Than to leave me alone here
Under the stars.

Drifting to sleep
I ponder them.

Concave mirror
Collecting light-
Quiet mind turns into telescope.

I savor the night
And the stars that shine through,
Their sparkle small enough to swallow.

Small enough
For you and me
To know.

onto the page

These poems
Demand to be written.
They keep me awake
And take their own shape.

As automatic fingers fly
Across the keys,
The poetry spills out
Onto the page.

handshake

carnage
from my knuckles
to my fingertips
rudolphs
glowing red
you hold out your hand
for a handshake
and i hope you don't see them
shining there
at the front of the sleigh
a way to cope
on foggy christmas eves
and other days

echo chamber

On maps Michigan
Is the shape of a mitten.
As our van drives away
I catch a glimpse of the yarn
Unraveling,
Revealing what I was unprepared
To see.
The hidden hand
Never stops waving goodbye.

Years later,
Sitting in the back of a pick-up truck,
You tell me I'm resilient.
Driving away, dirt roads,
From a village
That also is not home.
For years I hold
That word in my hands
Hoping it will echo-
Dance.
I want to be like the moutains.
I could always pick out the point
Of one, especially jagged.
Always wanted to be that peak-
The one to be noticed.

But then, behind the curtain,
Waiting to go on stage
I'm sick, uncertain.
The pills slow my heart-
Deaden its motion.
Shaking or waving,
I can't tell which-
They steady my hands,
Knit yarn around them.
Over and over and over again
I walk through flames
To get to the spotlight-
Have the scars on my feet to prove it.
After my short moment in the sun
You clap, the lights go out,
And the war is won.

Dark-
Drunk with praise,
I tend to the wounds.
Learn to equate love
With bruise.
Learn to empty myself
For you.
Coax acid up my throat
For you.
Learn to crave
The hollow-
Prerequisite
For an echo.

When I was a kid,
Taping pages together,
I imagined myself an author.
Now those pages
Are my echo chamber.
My thoughts spilled ink
Bouncing back to me
In letters written,
Woven into words
Reverberating.
I'm trying to empty the pen
Instead of myself.
Feel the blood pulsing
And not cringe at my own heartbeat,
My own motion.

Years later,
You move away again
And this time I do not feel it.
Too heavy, too full here
To be dragged along.
Instead
I set up fort.
I put on mittens
Hands steady,
Still hidden.
And the chamber echoes back-
Resilient.