smooth and quiet. My skin is my fur is blown about / by the wind. You arrive after the mothers have gone / and the warnings were plenty, yet you’re here with / a lamp in one hand, my cheesecloth heart in the other

Free styling doesn’t flush everyone with euphoria. / Many desire stairs or ladders or sturdy handrails / to reach their comforting plateaus and plazas. / And who could fault them when everything fails, / even our finest machines and conceptions?

We all loved that nearby graveyard / behind a church none of us went to, / one gnarled tree, easy to climb, / birds calling, butterflies floating, stray cats dozing in the sun, / ancient headstones, chiseled / numbers and names we stuffed / with yellow buttercups. We knew / about old age, death, funerals, / skeletons, didn’t care.

Weave a quilt of words unsung/watch as they disappear/find these words in crevices aching to be let free/but you can’t get them out/the words remain bound/trapped in a mind/out of sight/fleeting images/fading away in the night/thoughts remain in the shadows/never to take flight

What has happened to our life? / Where did it all go wrong?Recklessly wielding a butcher knife / Lamenting lyrics . . . a troubling song

i’ve been thinking lately / about how quickly time departs us / another year is now well underway / and with the speed that it’s traveling / paired with a major new issue / my life could pass by fast as well