The Lady

The river is the last road I will ever take

with its one start and one end.

I've been on the river all my life

treating the current like ocean swells

and wondering what solid land

would feel like below my wrinkled feet.

My feet have shrunk

without the weight to stretch them.

The water whisked their strength away.

Once I found a slipper along the muddy bank.

I slid it on my foot and it slipped right off

breaking along the pebbled bed

into sparkling shards.

Perhaps things on land are not as solid as they seem.

As for me, the river is my only road

and I will drift down to the sea.

As I sleep I hear them calling behind me.

The Lady, the Lady,

The Lady of Shalott...

I hope they find her.

Dawn

Among the hills

I am the last to leave the cradle

to see the sunrise above

the earthen swell that defines my world.

My sister, who sleeps beside me,

climbs to the ridge

races to meet the morning halfway.

She is all light

leaving no footsteps

but her shadow

and a faint one only.

The sun is the tightest hug she will accept

with its stretching fingers brushing hers

as its spare hand lingers across the hills

(across the flats, the sea, and the hills again).

She stands and watches the light

bend across light and sees it only

sliding along the skin of one

who climbed the ridge, and the next, and the next.

When it has risen and become fully hers

like the day she cannot share

she returns to bed

curls among the covers and creates

a darkness she can pretend is night

so that the relentless sun reaching for her

through the curtains, the covers

is a new dawn still.

When I shake off the dreams

that keep me quiet and still in the light

she wakes next to me

a whole day ahead.

Pro and Conversation.

How do we keep you

keep you safe

and I suspect a placard

hanging off the sheer glass wall

describing a natural habitat

inscribing natural habits

where this specimen was bred and why.

We'll make you comfortable

keep you calm

and I see a bed

transformed into a whole room

with pillow corners

and sheets so starched

they become the sharpest things there.

It will be so quiet

nothing will upset you

and the lacquered box

is soundproof with no air

to carry the sound.

The dirt is so heavy

that nothing could tip me over the edge.

Shard of Truth

Glass isn't water.

Sometimes I forget

and picture you inside your house

with all the window walls-

the last specimen of some swimming species

caught haphazardly in a bright lit world.

Sometimes I wake up

panicked

that all the windows broke and you

lay gasping across your sea-green couch

with your hair drying in long knots

and your wet eyes hardening

into wooden replicas like museum skeletons

where they pretend to know that the dinosaurs

wore red across their backs.

All the children would come and stare

sneaking pokes against the back of your arm

when their parents aren't looking

just to make sure that you are really

real.

Sometimes I wonder if you are

and that's why I came crashing through

your living room wall today.

Sometimes I forget

glass isn't water.

Homestead

My grandfather's shower smells like blood.

I suppose you get used to it.

He was born in this house

made of wood and concrete

and one door that opens off the second floor

into the air.

He is the last of six sons

and daughters too

but they married and moved and changed.

He hasn't.

In the barn walled in by corn

there is a roof beam that reads 1842.

It could be amended to

"1842 and still working"

but nothing in this house is ever amended.

Mended yes, fixed and repaired

but never changed.

My grandfather has hands like wood-

oak root, that snaps concrete.

He is the master mender

but even he does not change.

He was born in this same house

as his father.

His father died here

and so will he.

The shower water smells of blood.

It has seeped through the house into the earth

where nothing ever changes.