at the vermillion
using your palms
to hold me up
quickening with dirt
slick with mud
carried by the flow
sweep me away
don’t let it hurt
swift as a stream
screening for chert
for chipped flint
arrowheads
Crinoidea fossils
stones left unturned
a fish with shining scales
sun glistening on its side
your hair dips in the water
your hands as a guide
the tips of your fingers
your silken touch
sift through quartz
smoothed by sandstone
gentle and slow
through refracted light
if you find me
you may keep me
and take me home
coyote dream
i had a dream
that i was tangled in stars
legs tethered taught by sun
when i fell far to earth
i landed as a stranger
in dry rangeland dirt
i breathed in the sage
i bloodied the stones
my flesh was of clay
my teeth were of bone
i begged not to stay
When i looked in the mirror
i was a coyote alone
a sky-cast trickster
a long way from home
i was a rabid beast
gifted with gnashing teeth
a creature of night
wishing for day
what happens next
i’d rather not say
dark angel pseudonym
my dark angel
brown curls fall shoulder-side
I am pinned beneath
your hazel eyes
your downward gaze
loving hands with veins of blue
strung around the contour
of anxious fingers
buzzing quietly
drowning in wandering thought
your voice trails off
talking stories of heaven
picking leaves out of your wings
I’ve paid unspeakable prices
unyielding tolls
for trusting men with wings
not angels
but birds
with hearts of pyrite
begging to be gold
but you speak of darning
weary holes
in the fabric of my soul
I watch you thread the needle
for some reason… I believe you
future visions
in future visions, I am there
silken thread spun about a brass pin
golden like hair
in sputtering bouts of morning sun
in future visions, there’s a pear
dangling morose from a branch
he begs for a share
but the wasps will not allow it
in future visions, you are a mare
jumping proudly through fence gates
like a beast, untamed
you are shameless
hooves clenching the mountain as red dust
floods the eye’s white
we are humming cowboy tunes
into the ears of spirited moonlight
toying with flames from joy jumps the gun
remembering the beach when I begged for
slack in my lifeline
my palm opening its mouth greedily parched for fortune
accepting tarot into my teeth
coaxing grains into a pill bottle
to clasp as to grip onto a fleeting memory
of the woman I beg myself to embody
in the cool-tempered shadow of mesa
for visions of future versions to see
on owning a storage unit in your 20s
one day
you are tree
your roots have gone soft
one day
you are tea
you steep in the loss
and your taste has gone off
one day
you are me
and we drink to the thought
that our family is gone
we cannot swim
in lake michigan
the water’s too cold
the house has been sold
the boat’s in a lot
covered in mold
waiting to rot
pagan mother
my pagan mother
in Hellenistic headdress
lavender veil
in a frozen pond
diving after a ring
set on a silver band
carved out by
amethyst hail
naproxen ulcers
hydrocodone sleep
cocktail of drugs
silicone scar sheets
sobbing
and crying
wailing screams
opportunistic lesions
doctor said
big black holes
where her brain is dead
mouth full of spaces
filled with clots
where teeth should be
but for now
there is silence
filled with
monitor beeps
steroid treatments
mystery meat
and I
a scornful woman
wicked jezebel
share her resemblance
as I wait patiently
for the disease
she has
gifted me
but unlike her
I do it
faithlessly
on accepting the sins of family
as the boat I grew up on
is rotting in a shipyard
I have been taught
lessons of love
everyone with my last name
has spent years
trying to drink away
love is the demon
in the martini glass
left choking on gin
love is the hard drive
at the bottom of the pond
buried in silt
love is a tattoo
trailing up a forearm
name framed with stars
love is a Mitsubishi
kind of sun faded baby blue
warm pressed against my arm
love is the sediment
at the end of your cup
when the swill is gone
what will be left
to fill you up
sometimes to love
is to turn the other way
sometimes turning away
isn’t enough