Tattoo

I wanted to understand Timeless,
wanted to wrap my arms around Infinity
like the rough feel of stiff cotton
hugs on Thanksgiving. I wanted to
brand Eternity to my skin so
the passing years would never dull
and when Memory is peering
into a lidless mirror, I want to
touch my fingertips to the glass, Forever
seeping into my
bones.

Atlas

the world tasted like
dust from a high shelf, old
and forgotten like
crinkled maps. i remember
holding a globe between
my palms and whispering
as it spun on its axis, singing
lullabies to sisters in
asia. can you hear me?

Genesis

No one knew how He
spent his time weaving
patterns in the sky,
knitting gossamer threads
of moonrays and sunbeams,
the silken chords of night.

And when He pricked His finger,
no one ever knew that the first
cries of life - that shook the earth,
trembled the mountains - were

the hand of God.

Luna

when i was a child i never
raised a hand to strike the
moon

touch her cheek
bones, feel day break
over her charred edges. she
is bluebell queen damning
frost with a touch of
winter orchids

beneath her whitewashed stone
like her pearlescent tear
drops striking granite. her skin
lace was a womb for
mother earth to sing her
songs, cry heaven to a late-
blooming rose

she is the prodigal
daughter of an orchid
petal, birthing the sun
in secret. i am edges crisp
and charred by your
light

Prelude

No, thank you
to the world that dawned
the morning of my birth
in sapphire hues of red; it
raised me up from its molten
womb and called me daughter,
until the day my curls twisted
round treetops and I could
trace the Sun against my
palm, counting the rays that
colored my skin alive like
the earth trembling beneath my
feet and I could sing,
if I wanted, a voice of shuddering
pine needles in a tempest: No,
thank you, mother, I am
born of liquid earth to burn
the sky.

Satellite

Singing like grasshopper whispers
in blades of grass, a sea
stretched out before me and I
saw it in the way the earth
could part like waves, separate

the foundations to expose molten
silver coursing
heartbeat of the Earth in
thudding like the way pulse
feels when hands are gripping,

tendriled fingers like a cage of
beating bones and I
wondered what an ocean looked
like to God

Sendero

I lived in a world
that never waited, silent
church bells ringing, like
stars on fragmented glass
could sweep away sunbeams

I left a thousand eyelash
flowers on the doorstep,
spring lace bow tied round the
steps and the card
whispered nightsongs like crickets
never dreaming, always chirping
lullabies

I left my goodbye on the driveway
threw it down like old sweater
fabric on the grass. I ran away with
the moonrise, came back at
crescent-down to lay myself
to sleep in lily blooms

I shuddered in silver, dripping
from cold orb in sky, and the Sun’s
gold blanketed me like the
prayer I lost on the street corner

Cielo

moon reaches out into the
emptiness (void of starpricks,
smudged galaxies like chalk dust in
skyscape) grasping at that
last ephemeral shadowed beam
of light, tendril of being left behind
by Sun’s fleeting touch of
hello.