Signs and Visions

sometimes angels arrive,
unannounced, unbidden, enunciating
news of signs and visions,
weighty as the gold chain
sewed within the hem of
a skirt of palest lavender knit from
fine wool that, nonetheless, goes
swoooooosh, billowed out
by a wind gust while
traversing some orderly midtown avenue,
swallowed by grey and glass,
goldleaf safely beyond
the reach of sticky
fingerprints, the small, still
voice of the divine heard in spite
of the grinding of tires upon
grates, metal plates, the
occasional manhole explosion,
the interjections, interruptions, interrogations,
and soot falls like snow
upon her cheeks

Closets

the truth, predictably, lay
somewhere in the middle, the
jam in the sandwich, his face
reflected in the knifeblade
she used to smooth the
preserve evenly as the feathered ones
sang out their morning chorus, the
sun cracking just below the
horizon, fighting to be seen
through the serried ranks of trees, flocked
out in green, putting on their summer
clothes, the long, lean look of
winter put away, for a time, in
mothballs

what do we hide in our closets, in the
jacket pockets, the stub-ends and fond
failings we repeat, and repeat, the jingles
used to lull ourselves to sleep, stasis
cradled in memory-foam, remembrances
wreathed about our brainpans, the twisted wires
that even sleep will not unentangle?

Mothwings

mothwings folded into a
matchbox, the transparent
fluttering quelled to the
quiet of a heartbeat, the
galloping quieted for at
least a moment, a
brief respite in which the
birds take over, weaving a
song that falls from
the trees

ever never, never ever,
the black pools open up,
inky, and invite one to
test the temperature, brace
oneself for a taste, to
breach the unknown

ever never, never ever,
heart beats, thick, the
muscle sinewed over with
scars, the striations that
reveal past encroachments
upon that sacred space

pulsing and releasing, the
language in hasty meters,
ever never, never ever,
to breathe again as
once before