…just sitting on my darkened bug infested porch with citronella candles like tiny bonfires illuminating the painted mint green table with burnished gold
…I eat my buttercrunch ice cream from a chipped ceramic bowl and listen to distant fireworks
I remind myself that tomorrow the grass needs a mow…
…I watch as fireflies twinkle like Christmas lights
and mosquitoes intent on their suicide missions crash into the sulfurous flames
and sizzle like dying fireworks.
skin brown like pages from antique books
tough but easily torn
falls away with papery fanfare
revealing translucent white beneath
a giant’s pearl that brings tears and blood
as the knife plunges deep in its tissue
layer upon layer is peeled away
until all that remains is a tiny nub of palest green
an embryo left to die outside
its nourishing toxic sphere.
[My lame attempt at freeverse poetry, for whatever it’s worth.]
Softer, more buoyant than ocean water
Welcome as a warm spell in January
and sudden as a summer squall
hot floods of tears from some unknown cistern rise up and
caress my face like
the loving touch of the mother I longed for and never had and
my fears and doubts fade and dissolve
Relaxing, not scared and
Melting into this dark warm and unfamiliar place
I sleep but never forget.
Ascending to the surface through an ocean of dissolving dreams
I cry out to the stars: Where are you? Who are you? How did you know?
I wait and wait and wait and I
hear nothing but the endless silence of the stars and
the crashing of the waves on the faraway shore and
the beating of my heart and
I wait
Then the answer comes: I’ve always been here.
Look inside and then look up.
Loving arms reach down and lift me up and
hold me like my mother should have and then I hear these words:
“You have passed this test.
Now, armed with the twin swords of truth and light
the dangers you faced can no longer harm you.
You are strong, you are safe and
God anoints you
with every tear that falls.”
Lucky Otters Haven 