the gods are home

                                                                         mOon

                                                     suffered,

                                                                               not in words                      but openly

                    every month

                                                             to say  moonlight

                                                                                 is beautiful                     and she                   

   

                       benefits you,

                                 correctly,

                                                               up and down

                                                                                     she says

                                        the gods are

                                       home,

                                               and often, gods

                                                         are observing when

                                                             you pour

                                                               for better

                                                                  days

all the feeling

will turn her

aura blue    the feeling feel-

try-finds its weight through her

body    she cant scream

it out     it is not

one of those feeling-types

she has the feeling    again

reminds her of her mother

whose feeling reminds her of

her mother and so on it goes

way back they say written

in her bones in her genes :

what was seen felt when the man

(in the memory's memory-room) was

afraid and drunk and not himself      again

it had been a difficult

few centuries for the family

at the least they had

fresh air   had the voice

of their mother coming out

of her bones    they were merely

occupants of a place    at the least

for a brief time

The things we do to stay alive

I found bricks to hold so I may feel again

the weight of my body    otherwise i'll float

away from the now before me    around

me    surrounding me as though I am lost

in all the empty space    all the planet-potential

at night books cover my body-- the weight

of scalp-to-toe hardback poems whose bathwater

stained pages blanket me in smeared beauty    I dream better

with this alphabetic weight : I dream :

                                                               my whole

                                                               body is wrapped in plaster    beneath shell

                                                               my body shrinks smaller because my bones

                                                               believe they've been forgotten  & my spirit

                                                               shrinks in unison   inverts on itself    black

                                                               hole spitting out used-to-be-stars on the other

                                                               unseen side of the universe where the other me  

                                                               is very real and counting fish beside the river

These are not fighting words

A man in a black top hat with a faceless

face asks me if I want to look

into the eyes of a dying whale    in the background

of his question the puppies cry for me

to hold them   they can no longer remember

their mother I peel lipskin with my two

front teeth with space between them

they used to say was a sign a woman was easy

I break too easily this just-begun

day I don't want to hurt before noon

It is 11   I know the whale eyes will hurt-teach

me about surrender the back of my throat makes

clicking sounds like it knows what I don't

like it is hungry but I do know how

to place my hand inside a glove    finger

by finger I know how to make you feel

wanted    it is a good thing

to start by touching your skin

You tried to take the wildness out of me

Couldn't move couldn't find

my way back    to my-body without cold shock

of swallowed-water    Begin with

fingers    wiggle them awake till feeling

spreads back through every piece

of physical-self    It took years

to say the whats I cannot say

because you might someday read this

(are you the reason I only read poems

by women   am I searching

for a confession to hold me)

That was the sound of me confessing contents

of my search-bar   contents of mysilence 

When the blur faded I was able 

to see your face   your face 

surprised me    I don't know

why    I swallowed every blue

balloon and named the cat

Blue   Blue is hiding beneath

the sofa again   Blue's hair is

shedding everywhere   I love

Blue because he's always there

I swallowed Blue

I swallowed decades

of spiked-unacceptable  It was bust

or let out so I screamed

at light-hole in the sky*

became a symbol of my-sorrow     my-brokenness     my-what-broke-me

I shouldn't have

blamed the moon   :

powerless to move   so still

a swallow

would betray the silence

of bone carrying inside itself the memory

of everything I wouldn't have been without you

* (you changed my relationship with the sky)

We are all talking about the same God/ you and I

(your round prayers so beautiful (sit beside the window (a row

of spiral shells ))) I am seeing what whispers

look like   this new day started beside light

beside its lumens cloaking me from cold's sadness

when all the creatures around me sleep

If God is in everything    your God/my God

who are the same    I am sitting on God

who is blue and soft and covered in fleece

blankets    God supports my spine    God

is my spine today as I stretch to take down

strings of God-light    take down the glow-hum

the angel put in a box    put into the space above

my head closer to where

God is said to be    I will walk into

the cold God-air    into its thankfulness I'll have

a momentary God's-eye-view of the Earth and I will

take every Broken    and make it beautiful

again    take my arms    whirl them

into grace's field    into the knowing

I never changed in the center where I am

un-broken    I am still

there