1. bear

you brushed up against my thigh

and scented my spine

with marijuana dust and sandalwood powder

notes floated in black and white

splitting open my weakened heart’s

dream

we walked on autumn’s dock

slipped into a field of cold water

we grazed until morning

your blessed first swim

and me on your wings

a sonata in the winds.

2. rap your self tight in this blanket of night,

and the dawn will come to you. – shel silverstein

Cold dawn, darling trust!

The knitted vest will do

and silk scarf around my waist, oh joy!

I swallowed the last darkened midnight room

ronfles riffled, parting

our wee-est wall of down pillows.

The folly and fancy of fake living

sorted

explaining religious backpedaling.

The non-ending sentences, diphthongs,

tied, reeling, ripping

cotton sheets, and the blankets and the blues.

Baby-doll, love it, climb up babe

snag the octaves and stanzas

sing loud for the ladder

yes,

in your mind.

The same waltz next time

and the coda refrain

blesses soft

lambswool rapping my shoulders again.

Good night, good day

incontrovertible man

here we go dawn,

grieving death,

when she arrives.

3. listen

Listen with the patience of a summer wind.

Breathe with the soul of a mountain.

Speak with the heart of a cheetah.

Love just the same as the tallest waterfall plunging to the earth.

Journey like the mind of a canyon.

Sleep, partnering undersea peace, the jellyfish.

Feel with the spirit of the eagle’s wing.

Touch as a patch of grass does, receiving the dog’s playful rub, the bends and turns of a canine’s soul blessing the field, the fallen limb, the forest.

4. I want to say 

I want to say I see you

and that I can feel the way you feel –

when you say your blood

runs too fast

and pinches and slices sharply,

your fingertip at your temple

you say there’s war inside your brain

and then the struggling lowers, tugs,

and you hold your stomach and point at your diaphragm and pull

the loneliness from your breast

eroding your internal shorelines, clogging your air passages.

I want to say I understand what you’re feeling,

that I can sense your pain the same as you do, and that your

anxieties, the electricity igniting your nerves

is collapsing hope,

no fucking hope and

your spine bends, and you buckle,

just so because

your frayed and softened body

sinks holes into your mattress and your box spring

and you are below the bed and

the taste of your own boarded up mouth

is fear

and you say you’re terrified to be alive.

I want to say I can help

and that you will get better

and that you are an incredible human, and I’m so proud of you

but I am crying, and language has evaporated

and when I embrace you

what I do feel

is your fear of everything,

of being held and of being seen

and you’re shaking

and I’m heartbroken and

terrified.

and there it is, yes there it is

because I am crying with you beloved 

and we are terrified.

5. softly praying

But, praying.

Observing

the cormorants

appearing from the glass

their wings unfolding

breaking the surface,

Bat flags

snapping

then

curling back

unto themselves

a Midnight swirling

top of a SoftServe,

then

two together

synchronized bobbles

a glimpse of a shark’s fin trick

they pulse the underworld

with organic intention

then

joined by a hundred others

suddenly

flying low their love over rose and pale teal waters

ballet pink sky on wings

them

south.

Below then,

prayers

hope

wind

an island.

a fisherman 

goes it slow, alone in a small boat

out to sea,

me sitting in a walled room with song and psalm and chant and language

I am

actually,

there, them

diving deep in the ice-cold bath

skin slippery finding pockets of pleasure

underwater simply

wriggling wishing

to do no harm and somehow

soften 

living.

6. doing 

I

don’t know

what

to do

was what I tried to say

through

searing grieving and

knees buckling

from

a lifetime

of reacting and

resolving her

and a lifetime of second guess

sighing her while

staying quieter

and a lifetime of

spoiling, acquiescing and wanting

her

to be stronger than

her game.

Until then,

doing

was perfected

a tisk and a task and

a ladder to grasp

a look with dope swag

and an ass to grab

a note and many love letters

my way of finding kind

to birthing and feeding

and losing my mind

to typing and writing

and dancing blind.

Doing was easy as making a bed

until you were dead, enough

said.

7. behold

Eliminate

all things but the

nematode.

Behold

the bones of

earth.

8. my darling honeybee

Under sheet

side lying

inward

boned

dysmorphic

disordered

unmoored, my darling.

gender identification is your business

sexual attraction is your business,

my angel,

my honey-baby, my

honeybee.