A Year in Metaphor
Blue Ghosts // June 22, 2025
I thought I saw a few dozen stars
shimmer in the dark wood at twilight
But, like the silver gnats that swim upon standing
(given you have low iron)
they vanished as quickly as I could set my gaze to them.
It’s June, and the blue ghosts are dancing
The spring left behind a few feverish frogs, peeping
like a tourist town out of season,
only the voices of the permanent residents
The crickets warm up for their nightly symphony
Trilling in harmony to
the ever-chattering creek.
If you sit still enough
For long enough
an ancient chunk of rubble
will throw itself into the atmosphere
Like a leaf falling into a fire
it’s momentary brilliance
swallowed by the darkness
that waited patiently and lingers long after.
Tell me, what is the probability of synchronicity?
if you take out the hard numbers,
Is there any way of figuring?
There must be a few thousand of these little ghosts,
Bobbing through the meadow
their little lanterns swinging
in a cadence recognizable even to me,
A Stranger.
a stranger the moths have come to greet
who watched the possums bumble through the weeds
Pressed their face against the glass
as the skunk totters through the planters
who pays little mind to the cats
who creep from the woods and trod the herbs.
Here in the falling dark,
Finding my breath between blades of grass
smelling my skin and the damp sky all at once
I can’t help but send up a little wish
That one day I might be a little blue ghost
With a little blue lantern
Flickering through the oncoming night
To ferry the Forrest into the morning.
Calf Dance // April 24, 2025
It’s dusk
or just before
and my legs have only moved me
some 2,357 times through
520 square feet of space.
Less, when you consider
the plants crowding every corner and wall.
Less, when you consider
the couch, the bed, the dresser, the fridge.
Less still, when you account for the instruments.
Nonetheless,
the day is ending and
I’ve spirographed enough
around my little boxes
and with a nearly thoughtless turn,
I whirl out onto the porch,
into the yard,
out past the fence
to the creek that follows
The lip lines where the mountains kiss
I follow the creek through
the wild blackberry
brambles not yet bloomed
Over the slanted rocks
covered in algae,
out through the cattle gate
past the hay feeder,
up past the old slat house
now full of hay
I forget about the stream here
as the suns last lingering wisps
flicker behind hurricane pass
Here I stand,
watching the spring calves play
Racing up and down the rolling hill
Their tails stiff with speed
Back and forth,
gathering a friend or two
in the chase between
the knoll and the tree line.
Here, as the darkness
licks at the hollow,
Here, by the stream I followed
Here, as the calves ramble and play
I stand and behold and silently cry
and feel my spiraling cease
and my spirit whisper
This is what it is
This is all it ever was.
Snow Minnows // Dec. 2, 2024
We returned to the snow globe just before the sun
and let the energy of moving through the night
rattle off our bodies in quaking shivers
and white gusts of hot breath
Under seven layers of haphazardly flung fabric
we felt the length of our skins touch again
for the first time in two months and two days
In the late morning, the sun was bright
and the sky was empty. Through the window
one might think it summer,
all warm yellow blazing above
But below on the ground tangled
an autumn come and gone without witness
The afternoon spent itself
in a series of ups and downs
on the couch and ins and outs
from the house and culminated
in a bout of unplanned shut eye
later, when the light in the sky had since wandered off
more than four hours ago
when the ice began to dance in the wind
like crystalline ash or ephemeral minnows,
Swimming in the currents
that hiss through empty branches
Between our hands, a cliche,
but a delicious one nonetheless.
Warming our lips and
lining our stomachs with sweetness.
“This must be the kind of peace
you say you feel when I hold you”
he says
and I nod quietly and return
“Just about”.
If We’re Lucky // Sept. 24, 2024
soon enough my skin will be hidden
beneath a sheath of wool
and the meandering spots of melanin
will give way to webs of purple veins.
What a funny thing,
to grieve an ending
you were anticipating
hoping for, even.
Year after year
my skin throws me a party
for still being alive and
day after day I save
the tissue paper along the edges of my face.
no matter how carefully I fold the edges,
fold my fingers beneath my chin
the crinkles of use will accumulate.
Mary says
we’ll have 58 more summers,
If we’re lucky.
That’s the first time it struck me
I’ll have 58 more seasons
of peaches and pawpaws
58 more deep silent snows
58 more bursts of marigold,
58 more seasons of cicada drone
and swimming hole,
If I’m lucky.
I’ve never been much for holidays,
I didn’t connect to the things they measured
but this annual parade of flavor and scent,
Of sound and its absence
feels worthy of celebration.
The older I grow,
the more I’m unsure how true it is
Humans bearing the only cosmic sentience.
Tell me, does the lemon balm know I love her?
Do the tulip poplars know I dance in duet?
do the dogs in the valley bark back, just hoping to be heard?
I don’t believe we need share
the same language for this to be known.
But, should a fellow human ever ask me what I think,
May they find my answer in this poem.
Once More From the Chorus // Aug. 5, 2024
Return to the towering tangle of green
my handiwork all but swallowed by the encouragement of rain
The winter squash who volunteered to crawl along the white clover path
the thyme spilling over the sides of her box
The yarrow bobbing in a sea of winter wheat
Return to cedar feeders and iron basketspecked empty
Tomato trellises pulled to the earth, heavy with fruit
marigolds and beebalm and chamomile crowding
shoulder to shoulder beneath the scattered sun
Return to pots on the porch, perched in puddles of rain
sheets on the line blown into the barbed wire
wild lettuce triumphing over snaking strawberry
Return to cicada drone
cricket chirp
butterfly flutter
sleepy moths
Return to dove coo
sparrow whistle
wren nagging
blue jay bullying
squirrel chittering
fox whistling
return to wet earth,
rich and proud
return to warping wood
old and tired
return to piles and piles of projects
half done
return.
Knot my Problem // July 10, 2024
I used to sit on my mother’s floor and solve small problems.
in the plush carpet cut with fresh vacuum lines,
I’d ask for her box of necklaces.
I’d dump them out
on that same dense beige and begin to sort,
my little fingers deftly finding the beginning
and the end of each chain and unwinding
from the mass of link and thread
that bound them to so many others.
the house sold fifteen years ago and
my mother and I grew apart
then back together again,
though different in our second season
and I haven’t sat on the carpet
unknotting someone else’s chains in nearly two decades
but I don’t think I’ve stopped asking
for someone to make their problems my own
I don’t think I’ve ever stopped trying
desperately to free someone
from a mess they made and then stowed away
long before I ever showed up.
TAKE TIME // March 28, 2024
I gaze into an empty cup
These things take time
The water runs in the bathroom and the kitchen
and I am somewhere else
listening to the rush and the trickle
These things take time
I worry about the weather, about my liver
I am scared to go outside
these things take time
I should eat more fruit // JAN 4, 2024
I pick at the skin of a small orange
The flat callous of my thumb slides
between the rind and the pulp
carefully methodically constructing a spiral.
I think of my unwashed face
I will likely pick it away
One brittle eyelash
One red blemish
At a time.
I saw a video online
reminding me to eat more fruit.
Then, one detailing what’s in and
what’s out for the new year
then, one of an angry Zionist
defending their violence
Then maybe fifteen, maybe forty more
Their contents and topics forgotten
as quickly as my thumb, my same
flat calloused thumb
could pull itself across
five inches of glowing black mirror.
I feel overwhelmed when I wake
I dredge myself from my bed
like shipwrecked remnants
Still wrapped in the viscous strands
of memories that were never really mine
never really anyone’s
and yet I feel them blister
across my shoulder blades
as I chew my vitamins
and stare somewhere beyond the kitchen window
and they glimmer in my periphery
not unlike the tin pan blown
down into the weeds by the stream.
I’m making an effort.
I’m taking a nap.
I’m finishing the dishes
while the microwave whirs.
I peer out the back door
down into the valley and
watch the clouds shift,
waiting for a spot of sun
to fix my gaze on.
I’m making an effort.
I’m lying on the carpet
and willing my body to begin stretching.
I’ve made a big batch of tea
- it’s waiting for me in the fridge.
I’m making an effort.
I eat two clementines in bed
and watch the peel
spiraling past my fingertips.
Tonight, I’ll wash off yesterday’s
mascara and I will leave
my blemishes to heal the way they ought
and fickle fingers will be resigned
to picking at the peel.
I’m making an effort.
I’m trying to eat more fruit.
THE NEIGHBORS // FEB 18, 2023
the neighbors are back from their winter homes
I wonder if they know
the cold hasn’t moved yet westward
it’s just two of them, now
they’re moving slowly
they’ve got the whole season ahead
it will be a few days or
even a few weeks until
their siblings and children and lovers
join them
longer still until
webs are spun
and hives are built
for now,
these two neighbors
have taken up
a short term lease on the corner
just above my bed
shellacked in substitute sunshine
and a glow warm only in hue
The neighbors and I,
We have a understanding
and though my guest may balk
at this unspoken pact
the neighbors are welcome
or likely, even
it is the neighbors who welcome me
to the holler between fields
to the home settled at split creek
to make my nest
to forage my food
and to welcome summer
friends and lovers just the same
RIPEN // JAN 30, 2023
lingering fingers dig into
tender fault lines, tendons tense
under remnant summer skin
impatient for solstice spin.
transient, though ever present
a transcendental melody
a hymn sung softly
to a sky still mired in restless fog
a lullaby mean to stir the sleeping earth
half-mourning the reincarnation
of sound and
light! where does she reside?
ripening on her axis
somewhere above the winter blush
somewhere below, faded
freckles and softened flesh
deep within winter skin.
DOLDRUMS // DEC. 13, 2022
An ache for the future
formed from memory
a question will have to answer itself,
later, then,
the line rings and rings and
when?
the corridor of time
with it’s many closed doors
and, even still, the motion down
is difficult to place
is it a barefoot sprint or
an airport walkway?
the view from 5’2” precludes me
from looking past a certain altitude
of then and
now and
sometimes
then, again
I worry I’ve lost
space to savor.
will salty stalactites
form over my palate?
will I crave the water,
the quenching presence of newness?
Always forgetting
I am the waves and
I am the shore.
A SHADOW ONLY HOLDS THE WORTH IT’S MAKER ASSIGNS //
SEP. 15, 2022
the sun oozes golden through west windows
the bees bump the glass in search of its electric honey
why am I always so sleepy in late afternoon
and sleepless at night
sometimes I think I wouldn’t mind going blind
if it meant I could gaze straight into the light
What’s the Weather? // Nov. 2, 2020
In the early afternoon,
the sky smells of Greece
All soft yellow light,
cool breeze and diffuse heat.
What’s the weather where we are?
What’s it gonna be tomorrow?
There’s no telling
There’s no telling
Check back in when we have reception.
By six the sun is setting
in the Northern Hills of LA -
I’ve been here long enough
to know I wouldn’t like to stay.
The bus is always late,
I’m too poor for interstate.
Maybe by midnight
The sky will clear
to a still Cleveland chill.
Did you know?
There are nine types of snow here
(and an ache I can’t fill.)
by morning
I’ll be back in Florida
humidity clinging to my windows,
thoughts swimming through murky mind
like shallow, restless minnows.
I’ll wonder for a short moment
before I settle on knowing.
I’ll never be where I’ve been,
I’ve no idea where I’m going.
I WAS BORN // April 19, 2021
with an up-turned heel
at the sound of a door swinging.
I was born at the exit,
though I’ve never mastered leaving.
I was born in the ocean, in the air
I was born of the immaterial
material that must flow
somewhere.
Now-
I live in
Learning and Letting Go.
My tense grip flattening into
a fist split,
an upturned palm
ready to receive
Home.
at the sound of a door swinging.
I was born at the exit,
though I’ve never mastered leaving.
I was born in the ocean, in the air
I was born of the immaterial
material that must flow
somewhere.
Now-
I live in
Learning and Letting Go.
My tense grip flattening into
a fist split,
an upturned palm
ready to receive
Home.
Bare Bellied // April 29, 2021
In the lengths of soft grasses
Behind the farm or
Next to the creek
Whether golden hay shorn or
Hardening frosts in fickle spring or
Violets and hepatica and little lion heads, bobbing
On the tile floors
of a humid day bleeding endlessly or
an afternoon of little importance
Strewn with cushions or
Computers or
our bodies themselves
We lay on our backs and bare our bellies
As if to say
“I trust you”.
Solace of A Living Thing, Tended // May 25, 2021
Unsure exactly,
the solace of a living thing, tended.
Wordless, mutual gratitude.
Perhaps tangible, visual growths
perhaps the wordless trust
in your returning touch.
Perhaps, even the knowing
of the finite duration,
loving anyway,
loving just enough,
loving until you can’t anymore.
Loving as a choice,
as an action.
Loving as it is, as it will be.
Loving enough to help it to grow
until I won’t,
until I can’t anymore.
the quiet gets loud // Aug. 15, 2021
Slurps me up and holds me in it’s mouth.
Taste buds tingling, ears ringing -
stillness swells in a soft swish
as sweltering skin drips.
The sky opens and opens and once more unfolds,
a container contained against
the uneven nothingness
that wraps it’s edges in ephemeral whisps.
My spirit has doubled in size while I worried -
would I be capable of carrying it inside?
It left with a breath and before I felt it’s absence
came back to me again.
Another tendril, another memory
another chance to sing sweetly
of the effort, oh the immense effort
of tenderness.
At first I thought Grief was a circle // October 20, 2021
...it always comes back around.
I would be eclipsed by it eventually
and eventually...
I would find my way out.
slowly, grief flattened into an ellipse
and the moments between
fraught and forgiveness split
further and further apart
until the end became clear
and it flattened again
into a straight line.
the beginning was the genesis
and now I was somewhere
along and pulling away
at the distance
and time.
I failed to recognize
at some point
grief is...
your hands on separate sides,
connected to the same whole.
eventually one would
cross your heart
blood rushing,
it would start again.
so maybe grief is a circle
and grief is a line,
and grief will find me
in due time
I will know how
to hold grief
with these hands of mine.
Tempermental Tolerance // December 10, 2021
Im losing track of the difference between
deference and a flimsy wordless defense
expressed only through
quiet moaning and a slowly shifting glance.
I’m exhausted by this constant owing.
Nebulous, wordless debts
that seem to pad the spaces
I exist with temporary tolerance.
A parking pass for the weekend,
a storage locker lent for keeping,
I exist in a miniature forever.
Temperamental and tenuous,
I am until it isn’t.
And I yearn, oh how I yearn
to leap the length,
to cross the schism
between this barren modern feudalism
and a life that’s actually spent living.
Dust the crumbs off your hands // December 22, 2021
With a flourish
And an unspoken promise to see them
again when you sweep up the weekend
No need for a napkin
palms pressed briefly
Will satisfy the passion of the action
a passing promise
To savor your food
To dust the room
and keep your fingers clean.
And an unspoken promise to see them
again when you sweep up the weekend
No need for a napkin
palms pressed briefly
Will satisfy the passion of the action
a passing promise
To savor your food
To dust the room
and keep your fingers clean.
A silent piano // January 9, 2022
A real-life screen saver
the last thought to occupy your mind.
A meditation of smallness
of absence -
a stop watch after the alarm clock,
a few more minutes of rest.
A melody of clattering
and a restful refrain,
stecatto stacks of plastic clatter
the bedroom blinds
bought me a little more time
to clear my mind.