Traces

Not all are missed when
they disappear.  Like bodiless
shadows, dusty windows or
small, dead birds.  

Why do you think they
make us uncomfortable;
why do they haunt us?

I think it's because they
belong to us and somehow
we left them on a dark hill
or in a locked closet,

covered their faces
before they grew faces,
their skin like rubber
faintly emitting light. 

Once in awhile we open
their doors to look inside,
to remember what we were
before we gave them

a hiding place. 

Land Based

Seen from a distance in a doorway
like a fossilized dragonfly in amber,
a small thorn in the spine, the statue

of a silver magician I gave you
on the nightstand.

Remember I told you to be confident
despite the marks of your father,
his wounds in your skin.

You're going places.  For the rest
of us, this is just some place;
to you this is source.  Where all things
meet to rest or play or kill.

We must believe in transience
if we are to believe in destination, 
in escaping gravity.  Nature's fist

beats her children into submission
catches them in traps then releases
them injured.  On alternate paths

at times with collective vision,
we see faces of our own kind, recognize
the deformities and struggle 

to heal them.

Snow White

The moment has passed
when the word was consent.
What was taken in deadly silence
has been taken again.

This is not time or chance.  This
is something else altogether

like back-lighting against
a mythical creature or
a blind man dreaming

of his death.  Like
poison in the blood

or swirls and twisting
of snow on the shore
of the frozen lake

in perfect circles.

Arrested Light

Some light escapes, the rest
trapped beneath the surface
reserved for shadow-making-

holds the soul to its mask.

There are those who need
explanations but love believes
without understanding

like a parasite lives
with its host
without killing it.

Just as the moon clings
to its night so the heart

to its only window.

World of Contradictions

The coffee is still hot, the glass
melted.  Vibrations of evidence
everywhere.  Are you ever
going to tell me what we are?

I'm having problems
taking this apart.  Why
do these pieces look familiar

like a puzzle in the dark?

Why are our faces emitting
cries of emotional stress even
when we're sleeping?

If anyone needs me
I'll be walking the hill
where you last remembered

the position of each star,
a map where they died.
Time ticking on both sides

like a child shaking
a stone in a jar.

Black Beauty

Again, the good night,
the dark night, the quiet night
has practiced its thievery.

Dark matter, that black
liquid sky feeds all lovely things
then eats them; 

your deletion a hole
from the same space 
from which it grew, deeper. 

After all, we are the uncivilized
watcher of stars. Wildness
its purest form, crouched

in its shadows, sewn
to its side.

But this night, even
with its most heinous of scars,
I miss you.