To Hibernate
What once bared
goes back to bear
What bared teeth
closes its mouth tight
neither happy nor sad
not shocked or afraid
What bared heart
shuts itself up &
wipes fingerprints
on cabinets off...
What bared feeling
turns the sheets
down dog eared &
folds, lights out
What bared soul
loses it in sleep
2024 SEP 11
Forgotten Love
It lingers in the remnants of past memories shared-
The curvature of their smile,
The sound of their laughter.
Of long nights talking over the phone,
And days hanging out together.
It exists in the desire for them to be happy-
Even though it's not with you,
Even though it hurts to know that they'll move on.
And you'll never forget how happy they made you,
Or how lonely it was when they left.
It lives on through the next person-
In the gestures that made you fall in love with them,
In the sides of them that you didn't see.
And the love is recycled by you,
To be renewed by the person that they love.
Forgotten, but not lost.
Tip-Toe the Terminator
Shelled my amnesia.
Quenched my dirty
thoughts in mercury.
Standing sickness,
adapting with
healthy fluidity.
There's a void,
staring through
blind eyes,
who's surname
is grace.
She knows I'm there
despite my
unfamiliar presence.
No one knows
but, her reflection
is her nemesis.
Our devil as a reed in waiting.
Our sin as an invention
to preserve our soles.
Our God as the air relaxing
with removal.
Our Savior as the water forgetting the past.
Walking along the lines
of slippery rocks
as they endlessly
try to tell us the story.
For Uncle Rob
my sister and I cackled
a laugh that resonates
across time, and space, and reason
while driving in our Prius
joking about holding knives
and accidentally stabbing someone
our anxiety actualized
it was the last time we saw him
my sister behind the wheel
backing out of his driveway
my uncle in his front entryway
the evening light dimming
locking the door
in the house he died in
one month later -
my sister and I remember
the way he lived, the memories he created
and while we drove away,
listening to our anxious heartbeats
propelling us forward,
we were infinite &
while we knew that already
sometimes you don't know
when it's the last time
you'll see somebody
I think he'd appreciate
us laughing uproariously
into that kind of darkness
into the life he’s watching
from above us -