Death creates scabs
that seem too hard to pick off,
Plucking the fringes produces pain without insight,
like an exhausted, existential flow,
it’s a personal choice

Bleeding comes with tears
that you hope will heal you and release you from grief but
Grief squeezes at you from the inside
Grief seduces you with the past
Grief is not your friend, but hopes to capture you
and create a soft prison from which you cannot escape

 

When Hazel and I went exploring,

we saw where the wild rabbit lived

and picked some lettuce and a flower

to put in front of the bunny’s door

 

Hazel found a centipede

and wondered if it liked lettuce too

 

She found my apple tree

and sat with a tiny, fallen, green apple and kissed it

 

When she saw Christmas trees that lived,

she looked up into my eyes and said, “I think they’re like Harry Potter.

They have magical powers and so do I.”

 

Hazel got to hold the hose

She sprayed me and giggled, “I just couldn’t help myself.”

Then we watered the garden.

When it was time to stop, I pulled in the hose and she pulled back and said, “No.”

“Hazel!”

She dropped the hose and said, “Can I turn off the water?”

“Yes, sweetheart.”

The longlegs spider by the faucet frightened her and I said

“They can’t hurt you.”

Hazel believes that they are filled with venom and very small teeth that can’t get through your skin,

but I didn’t tell her that wasn’t true

 

Hazel commands silence in the presence of butterflies

She approaches with an innocent heart.

She only half remembers fireflies but loves ladybugs …

Hazel won’t eat McDonalds. She says they put worms in the food

She wants to drink rainwater so that she will grow like her sunflowers

 

 

 

 

 

Will you

Please

I’ll be

A different kind of dangerous

Amalgam

I pray

Time Clouds

Time is a fever

Time is ice

If memory is a river,

Unconscious

An ocean

 

Life is a reservoir

Sleep is rain

Dream breathing clouds

Like a refrain

 

Excellence is a hot move

Certainty is a lie

Rejection is despair

With a hint of acceptance

 

And time is a fever,

time is ice

Wounds need attention

Sex is an ointment

Hope opens questions

It depends on what you buy

Diamonds are stars

Nothing is forever

Longevity is a blind alley

Eternal and ethereal are relatives

On a lineage

For which I search