I hid my hands
The trowels of my expression
Like rose petals in a parchment bible
Hardly aware of the malady of grapes.
Instead of my sickness
I worried for the leatherback in the road,
Scooting him along with my small fingers
Knowing his hiss was in appreciation.
And as the Chiroptera spread its infliction
Like leathery wings through my body
And my hair fell like Lions Tooth
I counted my father’s hats like a private joke,
Stealing the red one for myself.
I would be weeping over the shattered marble on the black top
The beautiful twisted spine of life,
Unaware of my own ugliness
If you searched for me in youth.

Regretting my own surprise at ghosts,
There is no greater feeling than someone brushing your hair,
No greater remorse than one dwelled upon.
I feel myself forgetting the orange smile
With guilty relief.
The pictures only tell a story of stranger
I may have dreamed a silhouette
But it was one I never touched
And my first thought in the prime is seeping slowly away.
When I confess my idea
That death far away seems like validation of your own life
And casualty so close is-
Thick fingers twist the dial
(Validity of your own death is apparent soon enough)
And I would be looking out the window in confusion
At the blend of hysteria and ease as you scramble for memory
If you searched for me in tragedy.

His body is the beach that I lay upon-crash upon,
A coast of sparrows,
And in the stream you see cold days and warm hands
The future and the past all at once
A chapel of everything you’ve ever believed.
He’s the lonely fisherman, the snowy mountain,
The glowing cherry of a cigarette,
The thieving daisy of the old and new world.
I felt my heartbreak as he swayed, his lips pursed and eyes closed
And I watched him drift to a hollow psyche with his sleeping brother.
I would be sorting pictures in a melancholy way,
Reflecting on my preference to an underground voice
And promising myself I will always remember those shining moments
If you searched for me in love.

The egg is cradled by a beam in our roof,
Containing a sky of stars and footsteps
From Mama’s piano fingers,
A good luck charm, a hollow heart,
Shielding from fire with ivory walls on a cold Easter morning.
She’s a gentle palm, a quiet prayer,
Humming Santana as the yolk begins to burn
She meant my name to be pretty, but it is a braid of thorns,
Meant for another world, another life,
I hear my own imperfection in every mispronunciation
I’ve known too long to hate anymore.
She would be braiding my hair in the way that I asked her not to,
Brushing my neck with her long garden nails
Like the talons of Baba Yaga,
A vicious love
If you searched for me in tradition.

I hope I am the hollow sparrow
Serenading angelic stones of death
A broken pigeon in the roof,
The blurry ballerina, the true Anastasia
Talent at twenty five.
I want to be the first to go,
For him to listen to my calling in the dawn.
Little Bird, he knows how to find me,
A selfish lark.
I pray I am the eternal terrapin
That he watches cross the road.