By definition

By definition I am
something that recycles thoughts
I have overheard while passing
through the doors of
buildings and a thing that whittles
time from the day's sunlight
and thinks it is not
quiet as spectacular a feat
as the way tomatoes
can resurrect the dead
memories inside a person
I love and barely know; it is
an elastic thing that has repercussions
and reasonings and seasons
that drift away like bitterness
over the march of time.
I am by definition colder
than I was three months ago,
in the spring when the snow
still made the nights reflective;
I know less and feel more
and have a suspicion that this
is the beginning of an apocalypse
of words; they will not come
around anymore or sit with me
when I am alone and lying
between two cold sheets.
They will not have been
saved, as the others were.
Simply and easily they will
die as soon as I let them. 

I am in the stars again

There are bruised limbs I wake up
and don't remember how
they were born or marked.
These are things to be
remembered, aren't they? I can
grasp a grain of sand
between my teeth without gasping
or faltering forward I can
step into the shadows my body
calls from the quiet of green leaves.
I peel the white skin from a birch
and crush the poison berries
red against the paper
until my fingers bleed with juice.
This is the way we were taught.
I am keeping the cupboards open tonight
to let the spirits out, just like grandma
used to do with the floors,
and the hollow cavern of her chest.
There is salt on the threshold
and all the beds have been freshly made.

title page

When I first started submitting my poetry to literary journals, I ran across one journal that requested the writer send no poems regarding dead relatives or pets, rhyming (in the improper/inexpert way) or lists sent in the guise of poems. While I think these are in general excellent regulations, there are times when the only way I remember you're human is by listing. I keep lists in a spiral bound notebook of all the things you've ever said or done. I re-read them before I go to sleep at night and each night sighs out loud,"Ah, that's so poetic." I can't help but agree, since the night could swallow me up like it does to the stars over and over again. I wonder sometimes if this isn't a poem, if the words in my head are or the stop sign on the corner of Few and Williamson. I wonder if you are a poem, and that is why I re-write and re-read you every night, so I can remember your words when the time comes.