TEMPO

Acid yellow of the brimstone, 

spring-born, swoops from the sky, 

birthed from a cold wind, to 

my shoulder, my daughter’s hair 

and then skedaddles 

through the swaying pines.

The moon is already up, nearly full,

its lakes made of blue sky. 

This blue day will keel over to a freckled sky.

And I position my computer 

so when my eyes aren’t blinded 

I can see the Milky Way.

With my window open

I’m vulnerable to the wind,

how intimate it is with its fingers

of owl song, full of star flicker 

and the agitation of needles.

A fox screams.

I notice,

the flight of a butterfly in new sun 

is the same tempo 

as my night-arriving panic.

INTRAVENOUS

I eavesdrop on my pulse, a whisper in my fingertip, 

I may not be breathing but for that. 

Invisible forces frighten me, passing into the intimate loam of my body.

I´m a dingy pool weighted with silt and corpulent mist.

How the walls have turned from white to green, 

I live in a paperweight, gasp glass air.

Did you know glass is fluid?

From this sterile cocoon

I hatched like a fragile butterfly 

shucking its pupal skin.

And,

I am exactly the same woman I was, 

it’s unimaginable, this obscene relapse.

My mind leans against the fresh slab of yellow 

and loathes the word wall.