Portfolio
If you are not covered
and tucked in joy, you
are sleeping in the
wrong bed. There isn’t
nearly enough time to
live like you’ve been
living, praising and
crowning your sadness.
There is a Letter in the
mailbox from an old and
gentle friend. I think
you ought to open it.
— Sender of the Letters
The road from Iowa to Illinois
and back again and back again
and back again is caffeinated.
Your voice imitates the one in
a song you’d turned on (sultry,
gravelly, amusing) and then,
another handful of dark
chocolate espresso bean trail
mix. Last night we laughed that
breed of laughs that nearly hurt,
ceaseless and juvenile, stifled
it into the grey cotton sheets
that made us sweat in our sleep.
I’ve found the exact place my feet stood
when my brother told me I’d love you
one day. I am happy alone. I am
happy to wander. But I will be so
glad to see you tonight. Back again
and back again and back again.
— Back Again, Back Again, Back Again
I know today the words
of your favorite book
carried no gifts to your heart,
but tomorrow you need to wake up.
You need to open the curtains
and watch the infant birds
love their mother.
Your head is watery
with his ocean of burdens
but you have learned
to sail, haven’t you?
— Rhetorical Question
Spring has birthed the lilacs again
and here they come now,
crying through the kitchen window.
I’m earnest when I say
I wish I was their sister.
Every year they are new to this world,
Unobsessed. Unobsessed. Unobsessed. Unobsessed. Unobsessed. Unobsessed. Unobsessed. Unobsessed.
There are prayers on the paper.
Make me like them– mauve and free.
So unconcerned with old news and
sorrows that may or may not come.
When I fold it into thirds
and read it out loud,
it sounds more like
Make me not like me.
But at the center of this shape I’m in,
in the heart of the smoother edges,
I am the only thing I want to be.
I only want home. I only want me.
There is a me who is not asleep.
There is a me who hums something
nice as she washes the dinner plates.
There is a me who knows that looking
down is simply written into her code,
so she chooses to see the marigolds
lining the spiral path back home.
I knew her once. She is as lovely
as lilacs. She is mauve and free.
So the prayers have to change.
— Sister