My lover gave me a string of pearls
to wear around my neck
Stony reminder of a rare heart
“No one will ever love you like you are,
but I will love you into becoming.”

Sleepless night after sleepless night
kept up by the memories
that mercifully erased themselves
(and still
the insomnia
remains)

I did not change my name;
my name has been the same

 

She writes poems about other people
Like they’re stolen silk
Laid coolly against skin, delicate imposition
Shines like honey, soothes like milk
In a Renaissance world, life is in the linens

And it seems unlikely
that she wove from the beginning
It’s Just Another Thing She’s Trying
soon to be Just Another Thing She’s Quitting

Okay
okay
taking a breath
Yes I feel like death
But you could keep me close to your chest
Draw me out, put me through the spinneret
You think I’ll be fine?
Bet

I want to believe in a more beautiful future.
Oh, you think I’m foolish? Foolishness is the counterweight to seriousness.
Like a cool breath of wind on a pot of hot tea.
Chaos tempers tension. Whimsy tempers nerves.
We’re squatting in the garden. We’re piling up onions in the greenhouse,
long tendrils, fresh smell, dry newspaper, old boxes.
Will you put up a picture? Will they know who I was?

Depth of mystery, won’t you speak to me? I carry you with me, always.

And I remember sneaking upstairs to the room where the old organ lulled
in the corner by the window, years of dust in the keys,
and it still played.
And also piles of big pointed brushes
which A-ma used to write
in slick black strokes
on thick rich paper

Heck, I have had one or two of those big brushes, myself,
but my hand was always unsteady and illiterate
and children are given water, not ink.