Mess

Do you think back on which days were warm
It was eternally morning
No clock messing with you
11:11am, all the time
Arms overhead
Clear head
Carefree

What’s with all the ice, now, too early to the party
All the shutdowns
All roads some surprise mess
5:55pm, and always grey
Sunrise, where are you
Please rise
Sun

Steel Me

Wherever is my friend
Magnolia tree in her front yard

Alternating flecks of shade ‘n sun
Upon my weakened shoulders

As I walk under it and set a spell
A good cry comes

A goodbye cry, finally
To all the disease now felled

To Dad

I tried
Together to rip off the band-aid with you

To allow the city sun to shine upon the wounds we allowed others to inflict

Vitamin D for our tough-skinned inner-child

The parentified children we were
The superhero we each became

Heal with me, I shrieked to deafened ears
The same way we’d said it to dad

Heal for me

Lofty


I remember temperatures
Made me rise to you
Every opportunity
I leaned in to melt
Never swept the sun away
I bid it come closer
That I would rain down
Begged it then to burn me
Condense and then confine me
Maybe we were clouded
But I couldn’t care
I wanted to be near you
In your lofty air

Perch

Flowers
They’ve suffered at my hand
Frost
Did I discount them
Never
I, as would many others
Nurturers
Set them again in the sun
Believing
They would continue
Blooming

Single Torch

I took all the light in lieu
A select vessel
And with these, vanished to a sunnier place on high

I didn’t ask

Though it still pains me that no one put up a fight

There is more East now than ever before

Here, the Sunflowers turn their faces skyward
Earth and stars seem everywhere

The May-blooming Magnolia disappeared with me, too

Gracious, though
I left a single torch and White Tulips
For my shadow, who remains there, sometimes