change and the river metaphor

it will tear you apart michael says
recounting change and the river metaphor
(cling to the banks and it will shred you,
tumble with the current and you will find your way)
_______

that all our lives he says
as he and nick and i sip
the wellness tea
exist just so that we may
get to know creator (or, fill in your word
of choice here) better

_______

sand-clumped boots
i snip sage along the old morada’s
stages of the cross and
offer water to
sacred mountain
whose dark peak pierces
low-lying cloud

_______

you have a fern on your computer
woman observes/exclaims at the library
it helps to balance it all out i say
(thinking, now this – this is the taos i know)
i don’t know how you do it she says
even a half hour wears me out
_______

you are seeping in i say
while snow sifts down
as seen through the brooke-nook
balcony window
to places i haven’t carried you/
felt you before
_______
you know about my nightmares
i say/ask describing the variations:
driving and i can’t reach the gas/break
driving and, hard as i can, can’t open my eyes
or the dashboard is so high i can’t see
the road before me
driving as best i can while sitting in the back seat
or passenger seat
driving and i can’t reach the wheel or move my hands
driving but i can’t see around/about me
etc.

_______
cocooning i say
about the softness i seek
after all the showing up
______

welcome to my brain i say/sing
when i say something about
how the work is not
about getting someone to hold the space for me
but just trusting that they are / that they are there
_______

the smallest offering
to fever-hot tears
that appear in response to the collection of metaphors
that edward scissorhands is

_______
i feel so apologetic i tell brooke
for bringing the plague into your house
while we three sip the sick potion
(juiced ginger, lemon, cayenne)
in her kitchen

 

and the untwisting

wouldn’t mine the hanging
it’s the lying in the grave so long
oh boy i been
all around this world
i sing voice reverberating through
shower steam
_______

noticing a theme here she says
of james’s mountain mix
appalachia
_______

trees wearing sweaters
makes me uncomfortable
corinne reports from
iowa city

_______

this is one of my favorites i say
facing liana in stretchy bird profile print dress
backwards in kitchen chair

_______
wrapping myself in the
borrowed jacket (offwhite with grayblue)
infused with yesterday’s healing
po-sum-on – like mentholy scent
_______

occasionally i remember
to look up
from small bits of snow-swirl
to take in the clumps
of juniper climbing up foothill-side
blackgreen against whitegray sky
_______
break you down vince says
about grad school so you can
build yourself up again
_______
i appreciate your hanky vince says
i know a lot of women who think
it’s disgusting
_______

palm to forehead she says
she’s so cold i say she’s
burning up
_______

haze halo surrounding moon
and porch light and
street lamp and
any other glowing thing out there
in this snow-coated night
_______

10something pm the sound
twirling down the spiral staircase:
ricola bag rustle and the
untwisting of a wrapped lozenge

panic and poundcake

blubbering poundcake she
calls herself coverall-wrapped and
fever rising hands resting on
the back of the chair
woolsocked feet on kitchen concrete
_______

i offer
heart medicine in the form of
drips from the brownbottle dropper
of cimayo grandmother springwater

_______

how she warmsmile openheart
greets the man
shoveling snow at school
despite the panic and
poundcake status
_______

harvesting kale, chard, collards
in geodesic greenhouse
smell and hush of soil a
familiar home
_______
clandestinely crunching
on a chocolate chipped granola bar
in the public library’s
artbooks back room
in between secret swiggings
of contraband water

_______

golden moments of polyamory
i describe the
deep magic feeling and sortof disbelief
of when it all works out
_______
50 shades of disapoointment we
lean in and laugh at
perhaps inappropriate moments
she bundled in coveralls me
crosslegged in the
sisterhood of floral traveling pants
_______
regular steel and tool steel
she says are different. tool steel
has more iron – it’s stronger

unzippering

tossing cheez-its into
the drivers side while
swilling sips of
rootbeer
we back and forth laugh
while the wind tosses us
along the freeway
_______
tumbleweed trapped
in the dividers along
highway 84
while we drive into the storm
that appears later
as a line of white cloud
to the north
_______

small bottle
of rose petal elixer
tucked into backpack front pocket
because macon said
it’s good for hearts
_______

li lah she calls
the sacred spirit of
play

_______

spine draped along
cork block unzippering
chest allowing access
to an open heart
_______

it’s part armor i tell liz
the yoga teacher behind the desk
and part shine
regarding the sequin-splattered
sweater
_______

i don’t know if this
is appropriate or not
pointing with a fork tines at liana
in the warm light
of the pizza place glow
but this
is my favorite
body of water
_______

reading from the
card-sign relationship book
she twinkles in response
to everything about the 2 of clubs
that resonates
including but not limited to:fear of death and
fear of alone-ness

_______

from the water world:

Palestinians cross a flooded street in the Bedouin village of al-Moghraka, central Gaza Strip.  – voice of america, day in photos

 

gather a slow momentum

piranha at the kitchen table
chomping jalapeno potato chips and
and ramen while
singscreaming one of many rent songs

_______

all you have to do is
point your toes in girl with short dyed yellow gold hair
whose name i can’t remember says
and you’ll be skating backwards
then you can start
lifting up one skate at a time

that wheel squeak you get with a t-stop
she says you also want to make with your plow stop

_______

while the non-newbies
speed around the track
in a tight pack
screeching and dropping into
drills at the sound of the whistle
i gather a slow momentum
practicing the:
knee drop
t stop
snow plow
backwards skate and stop
and the low-to-the-ground crouching status
________

how we snack
rio grande-side
sandsitting
(banana chips, peanut butter,
apple, snack bar)
after several hours of lostness
basking in canadian geese water antics
of foundness

_______

dinnercooking, janesaw and i
discuss farming, kink, cut flowers and poly
while the pecans toast
the quinoa simmers
the asparagus roasts
and the mushrooms and onion saute
their scent through the house

_______

unnamed phenomena: moving through
so many different places
so frequently that
i no longer know
which city i am in
(for instance, being convinced
for some reason by the environment and light
of the dessert place
that i am in vancouver bc
when really, we are
somehwere in albuquerque)
and the sortof unphasedness
of this dislocationatory sense_______
something-star cafe
heart stickers on our faces
a young man several tables over
offering us cookies while
a black-haired woman
hums along
earphones in

________

the rustle of wind in a
plastic bag snagged in leafless tree
on coal and elm as we
pedal past under
goldening sun
dipping the city of albuequerque
(sidewalk, buildings, clouds, tree skeletons)
in gold
in the final of
twenty seven miles

 

sacred she says

open hearted and so sweet (but not stupid) debbie says
with poetxts in her hand
both of us agreeing about the ache
in the line which world did we fillet
this time
_______

i have been trying for so long
to do that i say about lighting
a candle (kate) while we dirt-road wind
our way towards cimayo mountain
and grandmother spring

_______

how we crouch to the ground
(palm on sandy surface)
when the earth is called out
(in the earth/sky addition
to the four directions)

_______

i just want to burrow she says
describing her humaninal situation
and the traversing of the river of grief
_______

tierra sagrada reads the text
on the overpass on the way to
santa fe what does sagrada mean
i ask sacred she says

_______

this is one of the original boarding schools
she says about the building to our left
as we roll into taos

_______

girl power soundtrack selections:
jessie j – price tag
k’s choice – not an addict
mary lambert – body love

_______

wal-mart excursion in three parts:
1. accidentally aggressive hip-check in
the traumatic-just-because-it’s-wal-mart
wal-mart aisle walking past women’s wear
on a shrinky dink quest
2. grape flavored tic tacs
3. under a sliver-cradle moon
(also referred to as a lesbian’s fingernail)
and venus shining to its south
_______
perfume genius album
in the deep dark of new mexico night
while we roll south and west
towards the light of
albuquerque
when i say the music is so sad
maybe i mean so much about so many things
is so sad and there are moments like this
when it crests and settles until it
gathers and crests again

_______

do you wanna ride my mercedes boy
sarah jane, liana and i sing
in the mercedes that is slow to accelerate
as we pull away from the co-op
_______

from the water world:

Icicles hang off a strawberry plant in Plant City, Florida. Temperatures overnight in the fields dipped into the low 30’s (F). Farmers spray water on their crops to protect the plants from being damaged by a freeze. – voice of america, day in photos

along the curve of learning

in the dream: a string
of previous lovers
_______

looks different i say
motioning south
to debbie and liz’s badlands
whose shapes have been
shifted/changed
winter will do that liana says
even the time of day will do that i reply
_______
from the windows
to the walls we sing and
i demonstrate shannon and i’s
inanimate object dance moves of
ridiculousity extraordinnaire

_______

chocoloate off dashboard sunmelt
mouthmess while i shake water bottle ice
that formed overnight
_______

i like watching us marathoning
along the curve of learning

_______

almost noon chilaquiles
clink of fork against bowl in
badlands desert sun sideyard
plus the buzz of a pulsing bee
_______
melissa telling us about the places
the ground has moved beneath us
while we navigate ridges and arroyos
in a space so clearly shaped by
water and weather