A leaf

I found you on the carpet,
small enough to fit my palm

brown, giving away the notion
that you were one of the weak ones
that fell first,

shadowed, with mysterious crevices
hills and valleys all your own

shriveled, no longer youthful
but bent with age and dried
with your dying.

I find you beautiful.

Living Conditions in a Glass Bubble, A Raindrop

Can you see what's hidden,
what it must be like, living
inside a glass bubble,
dangling from an orange stem
fat,
swollen,
pregnant without the pauses
to pale into insignificance.

I see a single white eye
a side view of a womb
softened, containing
an entire world. Not a replica
of all on the outside. More
choosy, as if hand-picked and placed
like old furniture in a new room.

I see you.





Illustration by Arlon, photographer

Facial Masks

Rolled oats and wrinkles
curve the corners of my mind
release the pain of hunger rumbling
and smooth the frown
between my brows.

How apt it is that something I eat
becomes a mask where only eyes
can see and mouth mumble,
where skin crumbles, softens, falls away
so all is left are the blatant lines
that hold the mind behind skull bones.

Wash Day Blues

It's as simple as black and white,
put the washing on the line to dry
on a perfectly blue sky day
and clouds will clamour
crumpling the margins of the horizon
in their cumulus frenzy.

Saying Goodbye

Steel rose into the blue
engines burned fuel,
fuzzing the landscape so
mountains bent
and shimmered in the vapour
stream. Words
stuck in my throat
as if the tears swallowed
had drowned my voice.