five lines seven days: April 2016

4/30/16

this morning, reeling from

the scattershot sleep

of mothers, I let

my feet guide, eat gravel

for lean miles like hungry dogs

4/29/16

the bald cut
through the mountain
has laced its fingers -

a mossy silk ceiling
to catch our prayers

4/28/16

my years crumpled

patchwork, mouse teeth

in the next room

the cat cracks

her greymoth bones

4/27/16

it had been a rabbit -

i saw its tail

on the asphalt

severed but complete

as a little coin

4/26/16

my limbs
stripped
down to wire

copper sinew
tungsten halo

4/25/16

lay down your
teary hiccup
in the curve of my neck

this room is yours
as long as i live

4/24/16

I wrap
you in a blanket
laughing

a cocoon
a shroud

4/23/16

spring comes
pulling open
the lofty afternoon;
houseplants tremble
blissful in an open window

4/22/16

he laughs

and his little sharps

sew the room

tight

with his delight

4/21/16

i wipe his tears in

the car, new routine;

all day the sky

wanted to rain

but kept forgetting

4/20/16

little boy hanging
heavy in my arm's cradle

sleepy bones
ballast
my soaring love

4/19/16

the black face of
the orchard bee
blank
but somehow sweet

tending her well-loved children

4/18/6

pulling weeds,

the fat taproot

snaps -

fingers scrape dirt for

the unseen

touch nothing

4/17/16

sunshine sifts through
a hillside of bald trees

above hawks talk about
circles
the only human word they know

4/16/16

the coal barge

difts downsteam

motionless

as a butter dish

on tomorrow's table

4/15/16

let your star-wild spirit
cascade, burn spirals -

but learn too
the patience of seeds
the diligence of ants

4/14/16

hang dandelion roots, our
pantry bright with dirt-smell
and fat white carrots

oh welcome weeks of weeds,
spring tonics and birdsong

4/13/16

even in exhaustion

he sprawls with the grace

of a skin diver -

back flung in a nimble J,

jaw clasping an unseen knife

4/12/16

scrub the crystal
thrifted, dust-hungry
in a bowl of vinegar

the hands itch pink
the sun shines through

4/11/16

monday's wound -
this old
gray vacancy,
the seam in a mirror
that obscures

4/10/16

crouched on cement

agog, feet lost to fractured

fault line stop-clock

machines rend the sky

with booming violence

4/9/16

nestled in the crags

of sleep

the baby shakes

his blind

fists

4/8/16

we are grown women
wifed, arms round from
cradling children
but tonight we are lean-legged boys,
our hot hearts, our beery oaths

4/7/16

in an unlit room

surrounded by rain

i disassemble

my spread body,

stillness in silence

4/6/16

beyond my
nightdark yard
i hear two cats
fighting

or lovesick

4/5/16

from down the deeply

shadowed hall,

a small, lonely cough

like a drip of water

lost far within a cave

4/4/16

tiny socks. damply spread

on the bureau to dry

cry mama, mama -

like gnaw marks in the plaster,

we can never fully forget

five lines seven days