why?

I was born with a question mark
on my forehead.
Though this attracted
no small attention
initially,
my constant queries soon
became wearisome to all
around me.
So I learned to speak with grace
and quiet.

But you must forgive me.

Some questions
need be shouted
and refuse to remain
unasked.

Hoover Dam

Hands chest-high on concrete
I lean over and out
and the bottom of my soul
swings open...

tumbling untethered
in the eternal grace between
beyond the time of place
in joyous song
a swirling dance
unbound
unfolded
exquisitely undone...

I push back hard with trembling breath.
Afraid of falling, he says with gentle knowing.

I blink at tears of longing
and say nothing.

The King and I

In motel breezeway buzzing light
in the cooling air of descending night
I was stopped just short of the ice machine
by the glistening black of the apparent king
of every earthly cockroach.

He faced me square,
the hint of a dare
in the tilt of his tiny head –
his body raised.
Antennea waved
as if curious I had not fled.

Thus we stood for two beats or three
Till I realized what was required of me.
I bowed my head briefly,
begging his pardon
and asking his leave to pass through.
With a curt nod, he turned
to march away…

I laughed
and lifted my shoe.

on a good day

I like to walk out

barefoot

to the ragged edge of my sanity

and hang my toes over the crumbling

lip of reason.

Hair whipping wild about my head
in the sweet-sour updraft
from the deep beyond me,

I raise my arms and shout

daring the wind

to show some muscle.

a darker set of wings

There is a hole
in my house where
the wasp crawls in
again and again

I spend
countless hours
catching it up
in an empty glass
to let it fly free
in the garden
but it never
fails to
return

even so
I cannot bring
myself to crush
its

glossy

delicate

menace
.

meteor shower

alone on my back
between midnight and morning,
I wait and shiver
against freezing fingers of wind
slipping up between boards of the deck.

my eyes fixed on the deep above
through frame of roof and treetop

it begins.

first one…
then three…
seven…
I lose count
they come so quickly

tiny bits of cosmic (more than ancient)
dust on a journey too vast,
for a time too great
to be grasped by the humbled creature
I have suddenly become.

so beautiful the flaring streaks of light.
so elegant their arc and curve.
each blaze a brief and brilliant
death.

not a
molecule
left
intact.

what was
is no more.

and I watch in wonder,
in growing terror
that such a thing should be
so silent.

i swallowed it

Small dark sliver
of glossy black
pulled from a crack
in the sidewalk

Strange, it seemed
a living liquid thing
in my hand,
silently singing
its siren song,
too lovely
to ignore.

A swift slip
down my throat
and the heat of it
settled and spread
in my belly,
filling me up
with a hollow
need.

From ache to pain
this gnawing swells
so quickly I can
hardly breathe,

and I try to quell
the panic as I cannot
help but wonder
just exactly

what

might satisfy
this hunger.