Broken Shells

This is the beach where
the invisible boy found
his invisible girl.

See how they dance
beneath the gull wing,
slap the weeping shore,

twirl and snap
between their fingers
broken shells.

Late at night you hear
them call like migratory
whales, then sink

down.

What Comes Loud, Unbidden

he said our room had two
doors.  One to keep open,
the other to keep us out.

This place is private
like a dream about a bull
who kills you every night,

the floor sticky with blood
and love.

Beneath this house, root
and rot grown up into the walls
like children who come

loud, unbidden
at a funeral

or his ribs twisting, cracking
around his crumbling
plaster heart.

he said this is our waiting
room, our names carved

on the inside of our mouths
like secrets.

Keep Quiet the Stones

carry your burden, this is (not)
a request;  fill the useless ruins
with beauty, then disguise

the mark.

Borrow the imperfect
returning it with fire;  find
the red and orange blossoms,

shield them.

Prepare the wound, revising
circumstance to prayer;
remember the jagged
shape of sorrow,

how it tears and heals.

Keep quiet the stones
sleeping in their beds, if
they should hear you

crush them quickly,
they will bury you;

walk carefully
in the wild, untended fields,
you will be swallowed.

The Cycle of Penance

is all about the light, the light
changing now, I am a dark ghost
a measured fading turned
silver edges dull

stripped of my ability
to adhere.

Unwisely expectant in
another world, I freely gave
without embrace or trust;

I drank the milk but
never tasted.

There are three kinds
of creation, the first
separation of memory

from spirit creating
light.

The second, a random
page torn from story,

scribbled out, the chosen
life.

The third, a fibrillating
heart that suffers for
its history of blackness,

forgiven.