Metaphor

 

through my cat’s insistence

I telegraph regret

at my inability to save everyone. 

an inadequacy I should have accepted years earlier 

my sweet feline friend

cuddles with me on the living room sofa while I read

at night in bed,  

I sleep on my side 

he sleeps on my hip 

he asks for nothing

vibrates the cure 

of self-forgiveness 

or so I like to imagine. 

here, boy, be the messenger 

take my mistakes

walk through a crowded room spreading the news 

I am desire and intention

a metaphor for

perfection in a hallway mirror,

What We Thought We Would Be

No one coached me on the proper manner by which to make a bed, a rudimentary life task

but tidy corners have never been my thing. 

I can admit that now 

I really tried making sense of life together

but a woman begins to feel it

sooner or later

feel it or forget it I always say 

the sooner I realized,

the better for everyone involved

there’s a right way, a best path

call it what you want 

most of us have a goal or desire in mind at the start:

beauty and attraction

we’re so alike 

we get along 

we want the same things in life

and these days that’s saying something 

even if secretly we aren’t sure what those things are

still, the day arrives 

a pall is cast

an unmade bed

quiet reckoning

Gone, Not Gone

with all the world and hearts on fire

still, I sit here in my little grief

The Pear Tree

An off-cue moment of freedom                   make use of this space while there is calm

answers to be found

breathe in oxygen of coffee and incense

meditate, back straight, head in clouds 

sunlight presses upon my eyelids

open to bare swaying trees 

pruned for another cycle 

two birds alight on a limb

bound by northern winds

Life in Cat Years

In the overstuffed chair

I remember how you nestled

into a spiral, my favorite geometry those last nights

before you went away

mornings were always wild 

it was how you saw life, 

your job my alarm 

a bell rung on the farm

where coffee and eggs waited on chores, feed bowls, sparkling water

pretending you and your brother 

were not needy

more so, I saw essential meaning

for decades tended others of your kind

who so softly appeared

heartbreakingly departed 

a steady stream of maternal gems

My Voice

the sound of my own name wakes me, startled and summoned, 

   I wonder

whose face belongs

to this ringing?

a wraith that trails through crooked stairs, empty hallway

I have been resting my brain’s waves and neurons

from worry and tiredness 

tattered elusive edge 

of the sacred dream dimension 

not mother or father, nor children 

call out

make certain no one is in danger 

a voice heard from beneath bedcovers in the middle of the night                    

    ignite

clusters of latent thoughts surface 

create a clear, precise tone

so much like my own

Reading

if I could find a place that delivers food to my bedroom

I would live there.                                                   and slip my grateful cash beneath the door                                                 

every inch of my bed 

would be designated as accommodation for me and the cats

comfortable chair

potable water,

a soaking tub 

why have I not thought of all this sooner?

novels and memoirs delivered on demand

conversations happen by text or phone 

but not too much phone, please

for there shall be no spoil 

to this peaceable realm

visitors, (little demons) may leave messages on squares of paper 

sent through a scrim 

of winter light below

please and thank you’s accompany

essential communication

overnight stays are 

out of the question

~~~

I have gone away 

you know it won’t be forever 

I’ve left for a land stumbled upon perchance

this hut on the tundra

my Narnia