the earth is holding them

i am holding them: all their bones,

the ones you buried. 

i keep them: not like secrets, 

but like saints:

enfold their bones 

in roots and webs, 

in beetles, bright as jewels.

Each name you will not speak

i keep

and cherish

and when their names are called 

i will unfold them,

slick with blood

and thick with tears.

Heap up your might while you can,

and your pride: 

that mountain cannot bear the weight

i, tender, hold:

their names shall all be told,

are told,

are cherished.

Each one weighed against your soul. 

a sonnet, an invitation

No more wandering. I'll wrap your feet in clay--

wind roots around your ankles, till you stay

your restless dancing. Till you dance

here, with me. Until you rest. Each day

with me. Lay with me, down: over us the soil

a coverlet: soft, bundled against toil.

Rest, dear. I'll wind up every lovely sense

of yours in dirt--send little worms to coil

(to swap your eyes, your lips, your tongue--

all your softnesses). To sate them. So long

you wandered, restless. Be here. Lay

down now, darling. Let others seek and dance:

Darling, let go each starveling sense.

I'll hold you, root you, cover you, love. Stay. 

requiescat

God grant you in death more mercy than you ever held in your mouth.

May the souls of children walk you to your rest,

may you not rest until you have put your fingers into every bullet hole that laid them down too young.

May every step to heaven burn your feet.

May you carry every lie you ever spoke, like heavy stones.

May the young men you swayed hang from your neck like chains.

May you drink grief before you let them go.

The grief is mercy. 

May you be granted to serve at the feet of dark skinned saints and know it grace.

May your children be raised by better men than you.

May they receive the empathy you scorned.

May they grow up kind and good.

May they dream a better kingdom than you preached.

May no one triumph at their death.

blues in july

These days i'm blue 

as that slim slash of scales 

on a swallowtail's black wing. 

Blue

electric, metallic: a dragonfly

that darts and hovers, darts. 

Blue

 

sparks like the sharp gloss 

off a beetle's slick black back

in sunlight. 

Blue

sky, no ruthful clouds just 

sheer bright space. Sun pressing down

till garden plants turn brittle, brown.

That kind of blue.

hand over mouth

I have no hope, but I will speak, Job said.

I will break my teeth on this world,

and spit the bloody chips out in your face,

you who made this, you who made us

for all these good gifts you gave us. 

I have this faith: 

to come to you, to hold out my fist full

of hot rage, to say

this is no justice,

to open my fist up in your face

if you will not be just, we have no justice

if you will not be tender, we have no tenderness

if you will not hear us, we have no hope

the world will not bear the weight of us,

of all this wickedness

done upon us, and by us: it's

too many graves to count

these days, these days, these days.

Do you count them, God,

these graves? 

the sea is a metaphor

I.

The sea is a metaphor. You’re not the first

to fear your drowning, when hungry grief

washed in—not the first who lost her feet

to fall, head over heels, stomach whirled,

mouth full of salt. Not the first who couldn’t breathe,

who swallowed and swallowed, while the sea hurled

itself behind your teeth, grasping, all thirst

past your gulping throat. All sharks, all teeth:

You could not hold it in your belly.

                                    The sea is the sea.

You swam out, once, from the white sand beach

till the waves changed to a wide, wild mouth

swallowing and swallowing. Tumbled upside down

into a whirl of belly, bones, and teeth

drowned and spit out with shells on the white beach.

II.

If I drowned--if my soft body went to feed

the sea’s small creatures, tumbled my teeth

(jagged, bleached white for once) onto the beach

to be gathered like shells—

                                    To be palm-tossed

for futures, pressed into sandcastles, forgot—

Regathered (seagathered)--Fragment, I would not

recall eating (like any beast) enough

of the world’s live things--nor of the grief 

I broke my teeth on. No one dies of grief,

but if I drowned, would the hungry things say grace?

Gulped down, drowned, steadily unfleshed--

you’d remember my rough edges, my name

 salt-sharp behind your teeth. And I--

my softness swallowed, my bones washed--I

would not. 

April fool

I’m April’s fool, tumbled

wide eyed into violets

and velvet bees

 

when April’s full. Head

over heels, a beetle

burrowing, a bee

 

big as a thumb, pollen drunk

headfirst in silk

skirted blooms.

 

Fall into April, itch

behind your eyes and throat,

fragrant, busy.

 

Fumble full and buzz

from bloom to bloom,

to mushrooms

 

fruiting phallic, frogs 

chirp. World's turning flips,

purple, gold

jingling at the toes. I'm 

singing, unembarassed,

upside down

I’m April’s fool now, tumbled

as any beetle, any bee,

legs beckoning,

itching, pollen hoarse

raw eyed and tearful, 

I'll uncurl 

here, ramhorn coils unwinding

into an unprotected slug, 

so tender-soft

even the fat white grubs feel 

dear, the greedy babes.

I'm down

to earth now, peering, full 

(O fool) of

Love