A Bird in the House
Purchase
Stay
This the life I created
from the dirt under my nails,
from the miles of DNA vibrating inside me and
all of the places I have been
walking this green and angry planet
this is where my path has led me.
Stay
All the materials are here--
an old soulful house, a husband now of many years,
beautiful unfurling girls.
I have planted my beds with hard won seeds and sprays of love,
God smiling inside me--always.
Don’t let the storms that blow through dishearten you.
Don’t make everyone’s plot your own.
Your job is to love them all--always.
Love them and let them be.
I will stay,
and by Spring I will be rewarded with rose blossoms
sprouting from my fingers
and children who grow up knowing devotion
from the very beginning.
Lust
Something flew out of me.
I’m not sure when.
A magnificent bird
Too large for my rib cage
With colored wings
And claws that clutch like a bad-fitting bra.
It had to escape or it would surely destroy me.
Was it lark? A lute? A thrush?
Something like that.
A suffering bird I don’t want back
Always hungry and ill at ease.