Issue 4 – Poetry

I am the rose in the desert,
withered for lack of rain.

Not even a fourth of possible- that’s all
your arm and you will get without it-
Forty degrees of forward.

She told me that she sat with him
At the dining table.
They had bought some pills,
Had made a pact long ago.

My mind is noise today.

The summer was hot enough
that earthworms in my neighborhood
unfortunate enough to crawl
out of the grass onto the sidewalk
fried into curled bits of brown string.

When the night is young, the moon will never fall
or sunrise into day
and for a moment, my thoughts are whole
yet rarely do they stay

I want to know one of your secrets
what you dream about at night
who it is you would die for
what you still want from this life

Please hold my hands, she said.
Is this it? Is this where I am going to die?
I am so exhausted.

My roots sink deeper than I know.

I think about you often,
My former teacher.
You died while I was
In graduate school.

I thought of thresholds—
intimations of mortality
in the undiscovered country
of lost dreams.

On my midnight pallet lying,
full of dread and stars in my belly,
I count out all the bones
I had broken in my time:

The angled morning sun
reveals the grimy streaks
on the windows
as I wait for breakfast.

There you are beyond my reach,
Separated by space and barred
From my physical greeting.

Since midnight,
no place to sleep
just a coffee machine
with no sugar or cream.

How much of me is you,
And you, me?
When I remember the first of us,
It’s just a blur of becoming.