BEAR
for Nathan
More than nine
red cloudberries
picked with honey-paws,
I prize you, Bear.
Born of the starry spoon,
keeper of the ancient sea,
your towering shape swabbed
on granite cliffs.
From an apple tree
you fell into my basket, Bear,
and never has such warm woolen awkwardness
swathed such an iron heart.
Breathing
The problem with breathing
is that I’m conscious of it now,
the contracting diaphragm,
the exchange of gases.
I wake from a sunshine waft of a dream,
daisies in my hair blown away
by the haunting roar of my breath
as lungs fill and empty.
…this poem led to a 2nd poem….
Yellow Swing
How I still love the yellow swing
at the bottom of a grassy backyard hill
and the way my pumping legs pushed my body
higher, higher, higher.
I keep wanting to jump,
to demand my novel or a newspaper,
despite this choking feeling
I lost something in the clouds.
Stage Fright
All morning I’ve been stuck
between curtain up and blackout,
pulsing in and out between a stage of bright lights
where the air smells of antiseptic,
and a pile of stones by the shore of a stretch of dark velvet
I’m supposed to believe is the sea.
I’ve never had a gift for ad lib,
especially in this non-life
where the pace is all wrong.
I should have made my exit
when I had the chance,
before they swarmed over me
hovering in their blue paper robes
wearing faces like masks,
lips curved in unnatural shapes,
don’t worry.
close your eyes.
you won’t feel a thing.
The worst scene doesn’t take place
in the operating theatre, but after,
trudging through the anesthesia
of so many costume changes.
I lose all sense of direction
before coughing and opening my eyes,
no deus ex machina,
just a buzzing yellow light
pulled close to my face
and an audience
at the edge of my bed.
Goose Bumps
I’m trying to write you a letter
but the quill protests horribly,
each stroke claws at
the cheap recycled printer paper,
picking up bits of fiber, tearing,
the ink bleeds.
I wish you hadn’t sat next to me
on that narrow piano bench
and asked me to tea.
I wish you’d never folded your hands
around that chipped white mug
at the kitchen table and waited, waited,
waited for me to let my guard down.
I wish I hadn’t lain on that crimson blanket
in the backyard, your breath
smelling of oranges and bergamot,
and told you the stars were
exploding silver pearls
and if we held hands
tightly enough
we could become
the dewdrop on a blade of grass.
What I’m trying to do
is write you a letter,
but the feather itches my fingers,
the carpet whispers distractions to my toes,
the chair holds the small of my back
like a perfect gentleman,
but when I reach back
I touch only wood.
I wish I could walk, away,
and not end up in the kitchen,
sipping from a chipped white mug,
goose bumps rambling,
rampant.
