Remember

i thought i was
a weedlot rose
sun warmed,
sweet and thorny
a conceit….
thriving in the dirt

so wrong so wrong
was i

my garden is a quarry
and i,
scattered
pebbles heaped on
bedrock

time frozen solid
in marbled veins

today i see
and think
stop thinking
feel along the crevasses
feel the varicosed ridges
feel something

i see me;
a statue
in a nightmare
i have no mouth
diamonds rain from
blind eyes

i see myself frozen
consider
how best to shatter
this nightmare

but i can’t think
of the answer

unbalanced
i am afraid
of breaking
and of the pain
of feeling
too much

1SageFemme 2020

En Pointe

i asked “do you love me?”
you sighed
“that’s beside the point”
which i guess is true
’cause i’ve been mincing about
tippy-toed and frankly
my feet hurt
i am weary
and my ballet moves
have always sucked
didn’t i tell you?
they kicked me out in second grade
i was an ostrich
among fairies

and why ask to be loved anyway
really, i should’ve asked
if you like my
dan
ci
n
g

1SageFemme all rights reserved 2019

don’t call here drunk

oh i oh i
could bite my tongue clean through;
my fingers
tap out heartbeats
picking routes through
qwerty
that will never
awaken her
building syllabic walls
between us,
surrounding the children
without protecting them

i send my message into space-time
wishing for a do-over,
just erase that one day,
that mother-fucking moment
meeting her,
blue eyes blazing
i, naive,
not recognizing the gaze of a predator

this dance is worse
than Stairway to Heaven
at the seventh grade prom
the smelly boy holding
on too tightly
and it never seems
to end

1SageFemme All Rights Reserved 2017

love 2.0

if i had known you then,
i’d have wrapped you
in steely arms
more love than trap,
but inescapable nonetheless,
and begged you to
be happy
there

so hey,
aren’t you glad
you met the
worn-in shoe
version of me?
my love won’t
pinch your toes
i don’t need extra care
to keep me shiny;
i am blister-free,
update completed
long ago

1sagefemme 2019

in memoriam

if the measure of love
is loss,
she leaves an abyss
a gaping
hole
earth cracked open
like your heart must be,
still
inexplicably beating
in memoriam

for Nicci

Prey

Here the field
patched green and brown
rushes down
undulates
like sheets in the sun
spiky grasses whispering to
a frozen hare,
twitchy-nosed,
ears sensing undercurrents
run run run
danger in fields
of scratchy, murmuring
grass

prey scanning for background
noise, peripheral
movement,
warning scents
musk in the breeze
heart racing flight
to the bolt hole
smelling of safety,
subterranean funk
and the after-rain
ripeness
of life

1SageFemme All Rights Reserved 2018

transitions

wa whoosh wa whoosh wa whoosh…
the heart is full of holes,
paradoxically less than when brand new
fossa forming over bleeding os
losing virginity in reverse
closing up shop
nudging parasitic heart,
whispering
“you don’t need me anymore,
little heart,
use your lungs now,”

natal heart reaches
arterial highway
survives in vein
to beat and break
crazy little
two-toned organ
lub dubbing its
percussive journey
life-ward

that first breath
is a doozy
think of it as a cliff dive,
leaping
thoughtlessly
into here
and now

hello,
and welcome
we are all as fresh
and lost
as you

1SageFemme all rights reserved 2018

insomnia

silence outside
yet the screeching
grinding
gears of mind
protest
awake awake awake
fatigue
becomes a plague
shush shush shushing
rusty cogs
how do i oil
screaming memories
nail down squeaks and groans
when there aren’t
floorboards
or even solid ground
i should have found
by now
the resting place
instead returning
idiot-like
to industrious thought
solve it solve it
dis-solve re-solve
until nothing is
a solution

1SageFemme All Rights Reserved 2017

poet, awakening

cursed consciousness
tracing origins to ooze
amphibious ancestors lugging
scales from swamp
they didn’t laugh
but perhaps they cried
just a little
at becoming
boundaried
circumscribed from
universal detritus
unlimited variation
gnawing, digesting, creeping
in alien bodies
through meaningless
time
until all at once
i
sit up in bed
grey matter zinging
why why why
worries nobody can solve
that don’t matter
in the vastness of space
or do i mean time?
as sleep flees
i think i feel
connections
long forgotten
the matter of me
yearning
meaningless body
staring into darkness
wondering
where my elementary
particles
were born
and why
there is a soundtrack
playing in my head

1SageFemme All Rights Reserved 2017

the quiet moments

in the lull between waves
exists a quiet
retraction, indwelling,
sucking-in of breath
hush now
can you hear?
house noise, muted
plates clatter
dishwasher overloaded
somewhere my feet
purr
no, that’s kitty
now is observation time
mixing metaphors
children come
and go in waves,
on Wednesdays
week of chatter
nosebleeds,
laughter, navigating
week of loss
inhale
not loss,
just a certain missing
chaos,
there are signs,
like clam holes in sand
hand-prints in the hallway
small shoes line the wall
they forgot their raincoats
and the horse picture
is crooked
again

1SageFemme All Rights Reserved 2017