Response to "Collecting Poems"

 Love,

 I was dancing alone in my head

spinning, twirling and dipping so low

touched my feet, kissed the floor 

when your note lifted me from this quiet.

 

I cleared my desk to write you-

set aside my solitude,

ignored my debts, dismissed my allowances.

 

Made room for what we might conjure- 

stori-poems passed between us,

 sips of Rumi mixed with island salt.

 

washing jasmine scented rice 

second cloudy rinse

is now a good time to write? 

Brushing

I'm still using the toothpaste
My brother left here close to 3 years ago.
Flattened,
Resting on the toilet tank  —
I roll and squeeze
For release.
Maybe if I press hard enough
He'll ooze out:
Clean my mouth;
Make a brighter smile.
And we can go on like that —
Teeth glowing and exposed because
We cared together.

JEANETTE, ISABELLA

i was born and i grew 
i held the gold light of the yolk and in my life it proved
and in my life the lifelike light
found crevices
and pooled and scabbed and cracked again
raisins and flour and water baked 
in the sun hammock of a lap
and long ears from needing to know
always as a duck quacking pink 
towards christmas
and christmas being the being born
a candle
big legs pulsing big sugar blood 
strong as earth but trapped like earth 
and snapping
hunched with a hair shield
pulled to bows beneath fast rain
there were slivers
and accidents 
and untouched time 

Letting a pilgrimage go

History, whatever it is, maybe Veritas pulled apart by Saturn,

spinning round the present it couldn't contend with,

gradually losing material until one day it'll either be conjecture

or was so slow to leave we never knew it gone

but knew it there once and and strained to

follow the ice and rocks

and dust that left the rings to ramble round East Anglia,

thinking of Bavaria,

of what they left behind in not looking for something else

that might resemble home.

History, obliterated by the present but staying for a while,

watching whilst reflection makes it meaningless makes it come alive again

more than a colourised march to the factory in 1902,

Model Ts years later on Youtube "Driving through the Mission, 1919"  

in highland green,

streets unmarked,

people in the margins moving the same as us, 

their clothes starchier though,

off to dip their pens in their inkwells to think

my school desk, the black hole where the inkwell once went,

full of wood chips instead from where someone else has

pen knifed a swastika on the fifth attempt, someone else

has absently filled that in with biro thinking about Weimar 

and its essay due in a week thinking about break-time

and his tie flapping behind his head chasing a football

braving tetanus round the rusty bike stands where it will fall,

I would never be home there though it's an orbit

along with the things that I did that I hope will rain down on me

or just go off somewhere, into space.

things under things under things

this she says

pinching the sinewy rope in her neck

tendon i say

i have a tendon she states

the words of things

the things they are under

Problem Solving

Problem Solving

I notice

half of

me dying

to get 

out of

this room

& sort

through my

long sleeve

shirts, short

sleeve shirts,

scarves &

begin a

knitting project 

& ah

make lists 

of gifts 

to knit 

for people 

I want

love from.

Wait are

knit gifts

just extractive

love shovels? 

Well maybe

instead give 

gift-knits 

to strangers? 

No. Strangers’d

just throw

knit scarves

up in 

the air

for wind

to whip

around while

me &

my skein

remain grounded,

neck bent

back, nose 

up, chest 

out, gaped. 

& soon

my gift 

falling falling

& soon

wet &

slopped with

gray slush.

Let’s review:

I have

yarn, time,

yearnings, beloveds

with necks

of skin.

Wait wait. 

Time? This

is where 

I am 

wrong. ish.

I have 

today &

tomorrow &

in these

hours I

must also

research whether

animals (possums)

burrowing under 

the back

porch bother

anyone or

anything. Okay

they don’t.

But see

that took 

a while

& in 

that time 

I did

not knit.

Also not

every knitted

gift will

be beloved.

Knitted things

are variably

lovely. Some

kinda suck

tbh. But 

back to 

the original

problem: how

to get 

love from

beloveds. Don’t

say, “Just

ask.” What

am I 

even asking 

for? For

them to

invite me

in. Oh 

hello actual 

assignment. Attention

me. Yes 

you lady.

Invite your

own damn

sweet ass 

in. Perhaps 

I was 

half right. 

I’ll knit 

small fruits

(raspberries) for 

people I

love. “Have

this berry

of fondness,"

I’ll say 

& that

will be

that. Period

end of

story. They

have a

berry. I

have my

uncrinkling chest

upfilling with

eucalyptus air.