The languid breeze tunes the trees,
rustling their emerald leaves,
their limbs whispering ancient lullabies
to the bees
that hum along in honeyed harmony,
drunk on nectar
and daylight.
Cicadas buzz, syncopated techno electrics,
a tireless refrain that rises,
falls, rises again,
never rehearsed,
their scores born in the heat of noon.
Birdsong floats,
loose threads stitched
across a cerulean sky,
sparrows riffing jazz from telephone wires,
crows clicking bones to the rhythm,
gathering what's been dropped for rhythm's sake.
Even the grass joins in,
the dry scrunch under bare feet,
a soft, raspy cymbal
played by the soles of wanderers.
Spanish moss dances,
swaying lazily,
passing longing glances
towards the willow's limber ballet.
Crickets bow beneath dusk's curtain,
stringed legs chirping,
plucking gracefully,
a twilight metronome counting beats
between firefly flares.
Beneath it all,
the steady hot breath of the southern wind,
the exhale of the earth at her zenith,
drawling backroad red dirt prayers,
steady as a Sunday morning hymn,
summer, lowing it's own hallelujah.

July's sun lingers in the cobalt sky,
caught mid-sentence,
slipping golden syllables
onto the lake's reflective, glassy, skin,
making clones of dragonflies and clouds
that float above the inky mirror of it.
The trees lean in,
eavesdroppers, branches entwined,
hands held in anticipation,
like breath caught
before diving into the murky unknown.
The breeze waits with me,
the hovering humid haze
wrapping warmth around my forearms,
lacing my neck with diamonds of sweat,
the slumbering stillness of it
a cat basking in golden beams
that break through windows,
a welcome intruder that never
needs to ring the doorbell.
I peer into the black, skating the surface
with long seeking gazes,
depths of knowing just beyond the cover.
My fingers long to thumb through pages,
and let my eyes skim past the tension
and measure the density in the bottom
which doesn't hold oxygen.  
The world softly exhales,
reassuring hushes that dance in the willows,
rippling soft breaks into the lake glaze,
and I remember myself,
not as the ever unsettled silt,
but as a shimmer,
the quiet light
that pirouettes atop the breaks,
skating the undulating surface,
a daylight star, sparkling,
that never sinks in.

When the midnight oil has waned,
and the candles waxed,
puddles of sage-scented sandalwood
pooled on oaken tableaus,
the scent of sulfur and kerosene
all that remains to show that something,
anything,
had burned here.
-
When the moon has hidden his face,
to shine upon some distant galaxy,
forgetting the steady, long-loved sun,
the tides pulled out and away,
no longer holding the sand,
leaving it to shiver in the damp of forgotten froth.
-
When the camp fire dies,
and the last of the hopeful dancing embers
shrivel,
their pirouettes curling into gray streams
of unrequited smoke,
fresh logs lay dreaming of pyres,
as orange fades to black,
marshmallows piled, unroasted,
in bags that won't be opened.
-
what is left,
once everything has died,
but... to make new light.

He beckons me forth,
my sanded toes dusted like candied fruit,
ready to be washed clean
by the delicate froth of white salted foam.
The hush of his tide brushes my bones,
black glass whispers,
rhythmic charm,
his fingers, luminous,
glint blue as he parades the coast,
curling around my ankles.
The moon sways,
singing silvered lullabies
rocking the earth
so that he sloshes, just so,
like the tilt of a glass
to your lips.
How could you not want to take
just one long, slow, sip?
I long to taste the briny wonder of that deep,
to float upon belonging.
The wind crests over the rolling water,
wrapping me in his cashmere grip,
damp earth, the raw green of kelp,
and butterscotch,
as if the sun had spun sugar
from his sweetness on the shore of day
and left it here in the breeze of night
to cool.
I wade into that ink,
assured by the calm and the air's friendly warmth
until I am marine to my middle.
My lips part in tendered sigh,
for at last, I feel I have found home,
but then, the sweeping of my heart
becomes the sweeping of my feet from under me.
I am dragged along the floor,
waves undulating viciously,
taking the whole of me with merciless desire.
His currents replace my breath,
my thoughts circling,
as if swirling into the drain,
I wanted to be a siren,
and didn't realize the sea was he.

I chiseled away at my marble,
chipping off the faults they proclaimed,
carving the weird, the unworthy,
leaving veins of 'truth'
Fingerprints linger in the dust on the floor,
where the best remnants lay forgotten,
the shoes that were too goody,
the hips that were too round,
the laugh that was too loud,
the silly khaki-less fantasies tie-dyed
and woven with moonbeams.
I stood in galleries,
tying my approval to wanted 'yays'
but no one recognized the girl
who was still holding the hammer.
I sat beside her,
my hand upon the chasm,
where a heart should've burgeoned,
and felt only stone,
pining for her name within the dolomite.
The crows brought me a mirror,
reflecting the squareness I had tried to shape
from my hexagonal being,
edges missing, sanded down
to match the softness of the world.
'rebuild' they cawed
recementing, unhallowing,
letting the fractures bloom moss,
and the rough edges catch the light,
we are not meant to echo.
Let the gallery grow wild,
breaking through the sedimentary,
sparkling eternal agate
from the stardust of which we are made.

I set the table before dawn;
the woodgrain clothed in white linen,
adorned with embroidered daisies stitched in hope,
fraying around the edges,
six chairs lay in wait,
none of them needed.
The wind RSVP'd weeks ago,
she brought ash instead of sugar,
while the silence stirred itself.
The roses arrived, already wilted.
I placed them anyway,
in the vase my great grandmother used
for holy water and secrets.
The cups are chipped,
the silver lining of the rims rubbed away,
but they remember the hands that held them,
once.
I pour tea, lukewarm,
for ghosts who do not thank me,
only mirror the steam,
their cries echoing in weighted air.
The sky cleaves beyond these hedgerows,
a throat that has swallowed thunder it cannot hold.
Still, I pass the cream,
to no one,
savoring the semblance of civility,
drinking down decorum,
a peace offering
to those who do not deserve
not even a lump of compassion,
nor a second thought.
I raise the fractured bone vessel,
"Drink",
I spit to the air,
"a toast to the burning
and the stoking of fires
that you just couldn't keep from feeding".
The kettle screams.
The world tilts, cracks, crumbles,
the crumbs unable to be swept from the table,
clinging to edges of lace napkins,
impossible to fold away.
Pinkies out,
I face the heat,
with a fascinator veiling the curl
of a smirk that knows it won't taste victory,
just finality,
steeped in bitter black.

pinwheels twirling
spinning from breath
blown through purple popsicle
stained lips
sparkling in golden streams of light
dust fairies floating
in a summer morning window
as butterflies catch
in the net of my throat,
words and wants fluttering together.
I spin silk around them,
wrapping them tightly while you aren't looking,
the wings too soft, too new,
to allow them to break.
The roses give me away,
reflecting their pink
on the ashen shyness of
my cheeks,
dabbled with freckles of copper
that fell from seraphim wings.
The stars witness me tossing stones,
desires dropped where sea glass cuts
and moonlight drowns;
They knot themselves to shipwrecks
no one has found.
I toss heart-wrought wishes,
the ghosts of dandelion seeds,
into the storm-ridden sky,
praying they will take root
somewhere.
someday.