THANKING

Sometimes, you give me today. Sometimes, I bow - in a dive - to your gifts. Sometimes, your flood is younger than birth.

Because, now you lean into the bend; now you laugh in reflection; now you do as an animal rounded and flowing, like an old river inside new rain.

Sometimes, I want to thank you so much, my tongue turns to tadpole, and my mouth to well.

Pour into my skin, and I'll know something of life. Surround my spill, and you'll know something of love.

SHADOWING

Today, you kiss me, again. It's been a while. You're tentative. Slow to touch. A wisp, and your brush is gone.

(I had let you go; I had dried on all sides; I had accepted a partially-developed state. You could have stayed away; I would have forgotten your touch - the root that grew me back to life.)

(Would you have returned to my form - drawn, again, by my strokes of contrast?)

...But you're here, again.  You're engaging with the grey - the way it knows how to land a kiss that causes our lights to blossom, and our shadows to fade.

BEING

Today, you lie vapid.  -Flopping in the marshy sheets, slopping albumen and lard.  You slink and yawn and laugh at the funny folds.

Today, you are bed-ridden, sock-tied, humps of lumpy toes and crumbs.  You hear all the sounds forbidden and mundane; you know all the secrets of sleep.

Today, you cry, "Master, I!"  Today, you fall from the sky, and land on your belly, perfect as a whale, solid-sounding as a certainty in the flesh.

Today, you rise at the fill of a bladder, and fall at the finish.

Today, you are grand animal, king of the library sea.

AILING

Today, illness embodies you.

It lies alone.

Its breathing tires.

It listens to distant shutting doors, and speaks in wheezes.

It seeks sleep.

LOVING

Today you fall in love with love.

Still wet from jumping in, you walk in a spiral.

Wind stirs you clockwise; you laugh, then step out of the spin.

Your wet footprints leave a purple vortex; your dry eyes absorb the life you've paved.