ode to a pulse beneath

when she laughed I knew home

calling in falling leaves heavy skies wide hipped denim clad women

she laughed rough stars and all the snark that reclaims our joy

she laughed good dirt

and the secrets to loving through relentless pain

she laughed loud cackling fuck this shit still alive flames and flowers

its been some 15 years but I woke this morning with a night gift

  and I could hear her laughing

I could feel what it gave me

what it dislodged, turned out and lit

and I wept for missing rough unabashed joy in my life

everything is so serious now

counting bones and years like coins

so often alone, all that snarky joy tucked into potting soil

and boxes of ash

I’m casting this poem like spell

I’m calling in a night storm

I’m asking for flames and flowers.

-->

water sign

what did I inherit from my mother but an animal heart

 and cardboard boxes of flight?

genetics

infused w preverbal trauma

unearthed memories of near death

synapses clutched up in knots

vigilance = survival

vigilance= survival

  freeze

track the predator with disappearing eyes 

I have to remember to unclench my hands

find my heart

my pulse my murky river of blood

full of cortisol and thc

I sink

into a hot bath sometimes 3 times

a day

in between

I study water

it’s memory

it’s capacity to hold and heal

to infuse

I study survival

I study wounds and their open purpose

I can almost remember mine

I can almost remember my mothers

  that narrow bridge from the adrenaline laced womb 

to my own fight or flight

vigilance of an animal heart

where I rewrite history with endless water

and keep the littlest me

safe from heartless carnivores

babies should be clear rivers

babies should not be

boxes built to fill with wounds

decades in storage

carefully opening each one over years

I lay them out in the sun

one by one by one

pour honey into the pain

I’ve inherited instinct

I’ve cultivated dirt and spit and thorn thick

protection spells

for

babies 

should be water

soothing, turbulent, resilient and healing

brilliant open animals

sick femme love liberation incantation

I want to know your pain

hold it up to the light of my own

let them touch

lean linger

love the familiar

bones of honesty

the world hits

hard breaks bruises

and terrifies

delights in our masks of able

while we drown

wears down bone to sea glass

so let’s celebrate our sea glass survival

beautiful

spill all the broken worn and translucent remains

out

onto the kitchen table between us and weep salt

in our knowing

no masks

negative space

the morning is cloudy

smells like water

and the sky is full of cranes and their cooing

song says

stay warm

move as you must

sing

I need the sky full of cranes to fill the space you are not in

I need soft steady companions

I need purpose

and as the mundane and the routines come slowly back
into focus

I realize they are the remedy

the dirty dishes are there to ground me cover my hands

in warm moving water

the laundry waits for me

in warm moving water

the bath waits for me

to come clean

come back

move as i must

stay warm

I need to fill the spaces you are not in

I need to feed the cat

I need to warm water

for a tea of roses

I need all the roses

I need my lovers soft steady hands to bring my skin back

from following you out to the negative space

that waits for us all

I gave you my softest steadiest hands
cooing to you

as you died

I caught it all in a

small cup of water

I poured it onto rosemary

this morning

beneath the cranes.

-for Agatha

                  

last call femme incantation

I’m with the witches

and the whores

the seeded queens

the beauty makers

the rusty dragons

downers

and loose change

I’m with risk

and a bad turn

I eat the rich

like any spell casting

pre- internet harlot

would

I’m in it for the cash crop

I’m with thorns

the stay the fuck off me

the make a wish moon

say come closer

there’s plenty for everyone

I’m with water

and the rusted beauty

she creates

as empires fall

I’m with

the seeded the sashay the unstoppable

rising shining

queens

that teach us love.

I am not Orlando

I’m a lot of things survivor

one bad turna luck from hungry

I’m sick and low class and as queer

as it comes shocked and I’m grieving

but I am not Orlando

colonization did not destroy my homeland

demonize my heart

leave me lookin for sanctuary

on a dazzling dance floor of family rhythms and tongues

leave my open joy a target

and yeah,  

I started hitting the bars at 15

twirling under lights or tucked up in back corner darkness

riding out something horrible in the humid n heaving

safety of the club

but whiteness took me takes me home safer than most

handed me the power of citizenship at birth

hell, even in the welfare line I’ve got “potential”

and my fellow white trans and queer folk

while we mire in rainbow slick pools of grief and privilege

let’s remember this

white supremacy is designed to strip us of depth and meaning

leave us empty save for that unspilled lavender blood

eager for narratives that simulate connection

since privilege only disconnects

whiteness always harvests trauma

serves it up with heightened security

rainbow cops

gay friendly prison TV shows

and how quickly all the queer and trans black and brown ghosts

are woven seamlessly into grant deadlines and no fly lists

right along side our most tender truest bleeding hearts

and I’m a lotta things,

the colonizers daughter,

a sick and useless casualty of capitalism,

a bottom feeder

and I know death and I know loss

but whiteness gets me through it safer than most

less a target and not a ghost

so my fellow white queers

lets not harvest lets not honeymoon

and call it equality

lets not settle down on top of black, brown n indigenous lives and consume

lets not whitewash this trauma and hand it to profit

lets not whitewash 500 years of resistance

lets not call the cops

let’s check our legacies

shift our resistance to deep foundational change

let’s call each other over

        call each other in

cuz while we are a lot of things all tender,

fucked up and beautiful

we are not Orlando

when heartbreak

puts your back out pulls 

an endless supply of ocean from your eyes

and hot water makes you howl and moan

makes you take inventory counting bills
in every hidden envelope

means you lie flat on hot then cold turned carefully 
so some of that shit’s gonna be ok sunshine

soaks the soles of your feet

when ghost cats purr in your lap

when time drowns in shock

and love is root stock, terpenes and salt

heartbreak rolls stone

exposes grief curling up shocked at the sudden light

decocts tannins and flowers with thorns

boundaryless body pain that stops you

means nothing at all

but steep and wait

stroke ghosts

don't drown

watercolor.
image: text reads "immigrants and refugees welcome here" on a light orange background with a large pink wild rose in the center and smaller dark green leaves of a rose bush with buds and rose hips framing the text.

grief is a beast

a hard lover

smoke

that leaves

debris lodged

unseen and dangerous

inside

a deep calm body

of grey water

grief

is bodies becoming

battleground

ghosts

becoming

only hearts

only blue suffocated blood

circulating through us just lookin for holes

grief is a hole

vacates

whenever

returns

whenever

years of desire

in the dark of your mouth

where the words come

up to tell me

Hold very still

Show me

how good you can be

sap rising

-->

cottonwood comes slowly

to green

first the buds

swell beaded with golden

healing resin

then catkins

bursting tassles of femme

birthdays

laughter

and parades of gay

then the leaves

bright lime unfolding

lace fans of vitality into a waxy deep green

that reflects sun on shimmering rivers

then the hearts rustle the hustle of being alive

a money tree shakes with stars

the balm

is in the foggy river valley

the budding cottonwoods 

teeming with bird song

the train rolling through

love poem to depression

 

hold

me in your deep

dirty pockets

smell like home

help me once again slip

into that threadbare shirt

that’s worn itself down on my stubborn frame

cloak

my thoughts till they curve

beneath the weight of all that

insistent one on one

reliable

if you’re anything at all

but vapor or an occasional smoke

occasional pen in hand

on occasion

I make a list of things to do

then as I cross them off  you’re roused

to reach for me

but my poems

they make you slow smile

sit back

and wait

it’s a chemical love story

we are unspoken tracks in the flesh

we are bloom and wilt and bloom again

til death do us part into stars

complete

a dirty pocket dweller

a high beam burning up

a fleeting springtime bloom

of this won’t last

there’s nothing to fix.

i like to paint trees! this is watercolor.
image: a watercolor painting of a leafless tree, mostly a view of the trunk, offcenter, with a few long slender branches spreading out parallel to the ground. tree is ribbons of orange red and brown, the sky is ribbons of bright blue.