Hourglass

Separating skin from a tree
is a faint task, like
twisting glass back to sand.

Long, narrow veins exposed to chaos,
leave their limbs. I climb inside
them for hydration.

I’m a fish, shallow in water,
borrowing lungs from
a human.

Don’t make it glacial,
blue is the true color.
It is royal.
It is blood.
I am oxygen and it feels good!

My husband left me sweltering
during the ripe moon. I grew
ripe, too; a full cherry
hunger in a bottle
of Gin.

Then this tree, he’s latched on
to me. I pour my fingernails
in. He knows his strength
matches me tightly.
We seize together on Earth’s early
tremor, and just as I start to peel,
layer by layer,

his exposed veins melt into
venom, he turns me,
my swift hourglass
resets, twisting sand
back into glass.

I Am Not The Same Size

To speak up on Sunday
when religion strikes like
the back of a hand

would be a sin. To question
a written truth bound
by message and baggaged with
fear

would be unthinkable.
But I do! But I do!

I let those words of hymn drain
slow down my throat,
digesting each He and Him,

and I am not the same size
as my companions in these walls.
I am unworthy.

I am faithless in my tongue
because I cannot taste it.
But I do! But I do!

I am full of confession, I swallow them
like bone slivers after the fasting.

My prayer is splintered by
knees on the floor.
My Dear God, humble me more!

The Desert

Weeds are sleeping. High Noon. The Desert opens its dry mouth.
Legs wobble over loose gravel, barely stirring the lethargic,
thirsty Earth.

The arid land has an asphalt tongue. I sit on it.
I melt to it.
A plastic shadow. Dried up. Destroyed

by the sun. Liquidated
by a watching light.

Red bugs have armor. Guardian’s of flight. Protection
from the land.
Turtles carry
shields,
and teeth. I evaporate.

An old actor rocks on a blue porch. He doesn’t
know the desert like I do. Never has sunk in its smoldering
August sand or been whipped by flaming winds.
He rocks.
Protected by shadows that do not melt, shadows
that create the desert.
He rocks.
Whiskey in hand.
He rocks.

I evaporate. Into the weeds.
To sleep.