There are pieces of me

on the moon

and on the mountain

and floating with salt in the sea.

I’m never complete

because I have bits of fluff

feathering birds’ nests

and stuck inside the railing

of a high-rise fire escape.

I search horizons for colors

to add to my fading eyes.

I listen intently to wind

to learn the oldest songs.

There are memories of me

in a displaced book and

foraging fingers.

I am nowhere special

and no one to hold tightly.

My tethers are loose

and I will fly most quietly.

A slide down an ordinary vine

into deep gardens of time and light.

‘What Is’ is not a contradiction

to what is imagined or never was;

it is in Being that a heart takes

the journey a soul cannot do alone,

so it is better with two.

A rising force making flesh

as irrelevant as paper is fleeting.

I’ve become an old lady

washing the universe,

oblivious to ensuing chaos

after the machine has begun to spin.

I’m spinning too, in my seat,

with uneven breaths and far-flung dreams

that look like heaven

and smell like soap.

I’ve become what I’ve become

and there’s no taking back

a single sinking/rising moment

before skin changed shape

and dark things began to grow on the mind.

A little daydreaming

makes for fantastic spot remover.

There’s cheese and an apple

and the air is very strange,

like the sweet smell of sheets

that should have been changed

weeks ago but time got away

and now, only smoke can cover

the ill effects of losing a body

because you don’t need to see

to feel the air rushing by

and know the end of the path

is upon you.

They bravely faced torrential smiles

of all the people faking it for posterity.

They held jobs and washed dishes

and watched old movies for relief.

He wrote about another her

over and over, in different shades

of grief and romantic cynicism;

she wrote about him

couched in terms so he would never know

it was about him, though he thought

everything was about him in some way-

which is was, for the wrong her.

They bravely set aside cravings

for junk food as they delicately nibbled

on craft cheese and artsy beer, dreaming

of greasy ambrosia and carnal knowledge

dripping from their chins.

He stayed in his teenage room (mentally);

she kept spinning in a made-up meadow.