The Turning

I stand in-between,
knowing and not knowing
of shifting leaves
against a turning season’s skies,
trees that shed
or bloom with abandon
hugging nests that are
not quite built,
in a forest that is
not quite grown.
Grass in its greenest curls around my feet
in a tangled embrace.

A home in the not-quite-grown
I have found in the forest’s youth.
Perhaps I am here
because I see a self.
Perhaps I am here
to wait,
watching
and hoping
for a yield to a growth both wild
and new.

*

Summer

Beads

down my skin

I am exposed

it’s too hot:

Heat exhaustion—I can’t cover myself any more,
but I am compelled
because of the eyes like beads.
Men.
And women.
Too many. I can’t be out here
I will faint from the heat
or the eyes
like sweat.
Beady

rolling

down my

bare skin.

Too hot, it is too hot.

*

Water

The lie lives in my body.

Water is redundant while in constant redefiniton.
Desire to become it, to become
washed free of my deception;
to create new rivulets
where I have created untruths,
rests on me:
shame’s adolescence.

One rule, eroded.

I came like an eel,
dark and sleek from the periphery.
Guilt claims us both—
I refuse it in full—
but the rule needed two to break.

My redefinition weighs heavy as sand.

Torrid waves weave Ocean’s new self,
gorgeous
and indifferent.
I pray for its guidance;
it shuns me and weaves.

On and on, it creates its constant truth.

On and on I weave redundant,
to seek my constant truth.