Be not complicit
Living among so much white is blinding, heavy.
Our sight fails.
The burned out lights in the hallway never replaced.
A woman locked up again, her debt mounting.
A four-legged creature crosses the frozen river. It is skinny, it has a spine.
Snow falls again.
I have an anger inside me that roars. It pricks to bleed.
I cannot identify the animal.
A truck dirties the snow.
The price of gas is the price of the weather systems
Layers of snow crystallize around the grit, its pattern emerges as a dance.
The danger of slipping -- I do not leave it behind.
Someone’s home lapped by the water line.
Her elbow crashing to the pavement makes a splintering revolution.
I identify some prints as rabbit tracks, some as raccoons, some as humans.
The snow banks rise and fall; the sky turns into an upside down bowl.
I identify some prints as rabbit tracks, some as raccoons, some as humans--
a splintering revolution. Her elbow crashing to the pavement,
someone’s home lapped by the water line--
I do not leave it behind. The danger of slipping,
its pattern emerges as a dance. Layers of snow crystallize around the grit.
The price of gas is the price of the weather systems
as a truck dirties the snow.
I cannot identify the animal,
it pricks to bleed. I have an anger inside me that roars.
Snow falls again--
it has a spine, it is skinny. A four-legged creature crosses the frozen river.
Her debt mounting, a woman locks up again
the burned out lights in the hallway never replaced.
Our sight fails.
Living among so much white is blinding, heavy.
Anchor in the mud
1.
They’ve gone with remediation.
Little bits of change
to refuse real forward. We need strategies
beyond bamboo strips—the enemy
is us, strange warriors
fighting our own bodies’ survival.
The sky breaks. I put on a coat
that burns like sun reflecting off steel.
After months, I am comforted we have come
to winter, time of puff and wool,
burning dust, paint layers. Seasons’
pace unpredictable, the blue something
electric. We hold our collective
breath long enough to become transparent
on this city built on landfill. We quiver
above a sea happy to take
us back into its arms--dead lift, don’t make
the mistake of anthropomorphism.
2.
The men in their cars are always predictable.
They hardly deserve the storm clouds
we have traded in for traffic.
We shut off the lights, fill the refrigerator
with jars of water. The shoreline that hosted
the bald eagle this year has finally iced over.
The most brittle bushes will be crushed
under the snow’s weight: twigs encased
in gleaming ice like museum pieces.
If spring comes, we will take bets on what
sprouts again. Green becomes unimaginable
except in the deepest of sleep.
3.
Boots and heels both
mine, all sorts of ways to go down.
Come up sweating. Blood and bones poised
to fight, queer defiance. These systems,
our relentless bodies processing
language, food, gesture. Come up
spitting. Defend, attack.
Do not leave money on the table,
solutions to those who hold power, your gender
to others. Keep your ugly
on, your girl close,
keep the charge full.
Creatures of hurt and heal
Let go, says the hawk. Let go,
says the dirt; let go, say the vines that wrap
tight to become protective skin.
Become another heart beating counter
rhythm, become an extra spleen
for mysterious functions
of filter. A month ago, light balanced
on the edge of dark in equal
distribution. We lifted our palms up.
Now, we move slowly toward
the solstice. Then, we will move
slowly away. The branches are thin, dark,
newly liberated from their leaves. The flash
in the morning fog might be a cardinal
or a siren in the distance—a marking
of this world where light is something
we calibrate closely. I have come into forty,
softer than at twenty, stronger than at thirty.
The world’s injustice clashing
with my deepest convictions. Every day
I do the only work I know—small shifts
in the balance of power. Again
and again, hard and joyful, the only
way toward change. Every night
I kiss the woman
I can’t get enough of. We move toward
the sun and away from the sun.
Toward light, away from light,
elliptical, steady,
bound and unbound.
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