i have forgotten the season's names. i will not call them.
freed from dread, i learn to forgive them.
extended and quiet, grounded in the beginning where
there is no word and no
misunderstanding.

unnamed season.
burnished tapestry, emptying its reluctance
towards autumnal aging.
branches push back sky until the view's left
empty. i don't want to see for miles. i want
vision obscured by color - leaves braiding across
cold winds lending illusions
of warmth. old cloth, strands
of light dripping through
gaps between stitches,
illuminating past's inherited
futures, immune to destiny.

elemental. i feel Air below my rib cage answering
Water's repetitive longing - waves within my
hip bowl spilling. My shoulders pour back;
my heart rolls open. stability glows, contracted between
always and always, unlike any other.

voice in my silence, urgency nested
in stained, buckling pages kept boxed
and forgotten. many of them many of
them filled tight and buoyant:
wound springs collectively
shut down and wait for length,
afforded through a gaze
moving; interpretation takes me in,
transforms towards rebirth the countless
mini-deaths i could not save.

i'll bring the sea with
sky cradled across it - mirroring
a mirror - draping shore, like a woman's arm;
resting branch round the shoulder of a man
or boy who sleeps or moves within
her comfort; her strength, dormant and coiled
in waiting, should he
need it to keep him
from falling.

mute ant agony (title does not at all fit but made me laugh)

find the calm i will
pull the sky down with the
crook of my finger so you can
touch the stars as we
lay here.

restless birds rise from
standing water in a
blurred cone upward pulled toward
mild infinite and the gravity
of every heavenly body above me and
you and you.

me:

my lips kept closed, my tongue
pressed hard against the high curve
of my mouth to hold back words.
i shut my eyes; your glow still
winds through and turns inside lids
orange and blue.

the habit of scent: i sleep within
memory's folds, breathing
your skin; another time line abandoned
for spirals and shape-nameless
trajectories. time with legs and wings,
a dragonfly moving through places
before this life's sleep and dreams,
turning someone like me into almost like
me, into dreams and turns within folds of
a scent recalled. blankets and calls
remembering what i cannot possibly
remember: the color of pumpkins and deep
waters imprinted on my soul, my spirited
depths draw deeper with each day
more permanent, with each day more
permanent than i will ever be someone like
me almost
like me.