The Bookstore

When the old bookstore
on 4th Street burned,
the smoke smelled
like sandalwood and roses,
and I wept

for the high, jumbled, hide and seek shelves
and the off-key brass bell on the door
and the margins full of love notes left
and lost.

Cage Wide Open

When I've unraveled every yarn
and stunned the voices silent;
when I can take my place
in the kitchen or as queen;
When I own all my deeds
and every word that I have spoken,

I'll be birdsong
with the cage
wide open.

When I can choose direction
or crush the compass in my fist.
When I can vandalize the garden
in honor of my sister Eves
and finally hold an apple
with its skin unbroken,

I'll be birdsong
with the cage
wide open.

A bit of a nod to Miss Maya for Shay's word list prompt at Real Toads

Yesterday

Yesterday was nothing to write about.
I didn't see the moving of God's hand.
There were no hoarse whispers
at the edge of my hearing.
There was no crepitis crack
beneath my hands.
The smell of morphine still hints at my hair,
but my coffee tastes like back to normal.

Life Is

Life is a lot like
a government fuck
ponderous and taxing
as unbroken blank verse
swallowing the page
and eating your eyes
blind to the random
rhyme of miracles.

For Open Link Monday at Real Toads

Show And Tell

I tell because I cannot show the
crisscross cracks in this stained glass soul; the
flower felled by hobnail boots; the
depth and thrust
of moons.

I show because I cannot tell the
truth of us half so well as the
bloom of us scents my hands
and stands as all the

proof
I need
of God.

55 words for Hedge at Real Toads.  Also submitted to Poetry Pantry.