Category: pick 52

January
ii.

I am dashing
said the wind
charming steam
from smokestacks whisking it
away as dreamers wake
still reaching

At the end of it all
is beginning
said the moon

I will wait my turn
said the river

January
i.

I bite and drain cheeks
of color said the wind
steal breath from those intending
to live forever

In the middle of cold
is no cold
said the moon

I am still here
said the river

Freedom
v.

Footsteps crunch.
Air cuts like knives as wheels
revert to stone.

Everything grinds.

Even the moon
is slow to rise.

Beneath us,
rivers wait
for Spring
and
freedom, always

freedom.

Freedom
iv.

A few things that = freedom from combing hair:

dreadlocks.
hats.
sleeping all day.
being bald.
being five. or the baby of your family at any age, unless
you are already bald, therefore free.
not having a comb.
having a comb but not using it.
having Fisher Price hair.
there are more things but it’s time to stop this list and find
a comb.

Freedom
iii.

To The Guy At The Poetry Reading Who Ran Into My Eye:

First of all, I didn’t know exactly how to address you, so let’s just
say Ben.
And second,
I didn’t mean to stare in the first place, but
there you were:
in the way of my eye.
Listening to
the poet,
which I was supposed to be listening to, too
but got caught up
in watching you.
I wanted to see
how the words got from the poems
into you. So I could sneak in behind
and
explore two or maybe three
parts of you, like
nowhere near
that tattoo,
and the hand holding
your notebook, and the space
someone else might have missed
below your knee–

But just one knee, Ben.
Because there is freedom in
not knowing.

Freedom
ii.

Here,
in the middle of the very cold and
the very bright,
you are tasting freedom.

It is with you in the
breathing in and
spitting out
of words.

It is charting the course
set
by taking no
action.

Everything is.

Freedom
i.

snowflakes rampage.
giddy, covering branches.
freedom from leaves.

Before
v.

kiss the children.
gather light and laughter.
before sunset.

Before
iv.

I had already
gone for a dip and
taken a sip and skated a bit and
sunk below bottom and
come up for air and
searched and believed and
forgotten to breathe and been
washed out by tides in the sea
of your eyes
before
you thought

to blink.

Before
iii.

To The Grumpy Man In The Underground Parking Lot:

Don’t worry. We will squeeze the
bitter out of you and use it
to make Grandma’s German chocolate cake.

Your not-to-be-bothered glare will taste
simply delicious
with milk.

Your humpf to our greeting is
dark chocolate chips–the extra twice
chocolate-in-chocolate.

Your frown will be frosting, grown firm
at the edges.
Waiting to be bitten.

In the days before we learn
what you have learned,
you will be our favorite after-school treat.

Even the dog will beg
to lick the plate.