me & you
Ice
at the tip of my finger,
smooth
on the glass, a smudge
against my other eyes,
staring back at a face I know.
I see you in me,
all backwards in the mirror,
all wrong within the mirror,
all bent behind the breaking —
and I flinch against the sliver
diving deep
into my palm.
Behind the blood we hold tight to heaving chests,
we reach through windows
and come back cut to the quick,
bearing
a wound
for the world.
call & response
I believe in the power of the broken
to attract,
like blooms, precarious
on the stem. They cast
nectar-sweet lines to passing bees,
fluted stanzas on a summer’s day.
Pass me by
if you will,
but it will do your heart good
to shelter here
and sip
the bitter with the sweet.
hide & seek
Where are you, beloved?
I adore your lips.
Let your answer
be my breath.
I wish that this was
only hide-and-seek,
but I smell death.
Where are you, beloved?
I know why you
flee, and my heart
within me grows.
The deeper in
you hide from me,
the deeper I will go.
Where are you, beloved?
Come to me.
I have seen it, and
know the cost.
Come to me and
rest, for I am
willing to be lost.
half & whole
He crosses the threshold.
The place is hollowed out
like a pumpkin’s skull,
eyes cut at odd angles,
strings of cobwebs dripping
from the shell.
He broods,
a smile hovering
behind the frames.
The bones are strong,
if tinder-dry,
and welcoming
if only for what echos
down the hallways —
a life,
known to some as
a home,
time-riven
yet intact.
So he nods,
the architect,
and consults the blueprint.
Yes.
This is indeed a home,
if we can only see
the fragments
by way of the whole.