brother, you’ve forgotten
forgotten braiding paths
the ancestors who drew your second toe longer than the rest
forgotten the dancing bones
in your knee
brother, you’ve forgotten all
in your insistence on remembering half

sister, I’ve forgotten you
numbers never exchanged as we sat smirking across the table
sister, I’ve purged you
in my howling
for you forsook me
being a child offers you no sanctuary
don’t try to revive a smile
i came to you
and you offered spiders and web

I’m having nightmares lately
of being unable to wake up
I’m awake now simply because i haven’t tried to wake up
to drown in your own squishy brain
trouble is it’s a real thing
without my meds
i flail an arm or plan a riot in my leg
to disturb myself
only to fall right back into the nothingness
other nightmares on repeat
a movie trope
grown stale and dark

with no place to sit
we shook our hello and goodbye in the same breath
only murmuring
-a later date then!-
and each clasping a journal
made our way to favorite haunts
ignoring the outlines of one another
as good writers do

my daughter jumps on me
excited for night
that streaming consciousness
for her and i
and i
am exhausted

she feeds me on her pretty dreams
and i

am tired

she shares her sorrows
sudden and heavy
and i
exhausted
tired
listen

at 3am i call the time
and beg her into her bed
but she trucks in a blanket and pillow
lies on the cold floor
for a chance to pop up her chin
over the edge of my bed
and ask
a question
that keeps us up til 4.
exhausted
tired
listening
i find myself wishing these dates never end

he commands
in the twisting of his hand
hurricanes and tornadoes

comets fall
when he sneezes
yet he finds it no man pleases

not himself
not his wife
not his children

all his life
has been building to
howling in midday’s waves

a sonnet a psalm
a midnight madness
breaking upon him

in these last days

Autumn folds me into shapes
and shadows
bending me to a far off spring
in seeds and branches bare
huddled
thy plaintive call
sucked by winter’s mead
-and what of us-
asked of my children
who tally not the passing days
-you do not speak to one another-
the simple howl of Summer’s heat

we’ve traveled different lands
arrived dressed in different conclusions
i put my hand through you
as a water droplet down the window
gaining momentum
faster i search for the end
of you

and meet it

as suddenly as dream distorts
the tangerine pulp of day
i meet the sweet root of decay

tell me
how did you happen upon this curse
the smirking lip
the proud forehead

when did humility lay dead in your garden
what warren off him fed?

upon the bayou’s shores sat i
to watch white fish circle
-smaller than a handheld skimming rock
each spun solemn
one after the other
a mermaid ring

i daren’t not break the mystery with a thrust of my hand through the middle
but temptation sat with me
as i sat watching
the mermaid ring

eventually the ring wobbled and broke
silk strands of fish darted and departed
but I’ll always remember the darkness that sat in
the mermaid ring