A happy Christmas burden

Reckless knives: a six-part drama

Your word blade cuts my
heart, lips no more to speak, but
I'm sorry, so lost

Shame is a dull blade
sharpen your knife, baby
cut me loose

Sharpen blade, cut
open vein, let truth bleed red:
You're still not here

Spend recklessly, horn
in where you don't belong, leave
footprints on my life

I stare, relentless:
your face – oh, that face – imprints;
can't believe you're here.

I must say something
reckless and pointless and true:
never leave me, please

(The poem above came together as a result of responding to #haikuchallenge and #haikuwordgame prompts on twitter, then piecing them all together. An interesting little experiment in poetic fiction.)

Advent

Barely aware, we
wait for you like soiled winter
for clean snowcover

Worry, guilt, anger,
distraction: I set aside
and wait. I'm waiting.

Tree of life, light, hope
drops a leaf to spare us all.
Pages bleed story.

It's all about one
death defying act of birth.
Yes, I still believe.

Date

A mommy-son date:
French fry, salty offering
of companionship
dropped in the void between seats.
"Try again, Mom." Simple faith.

I'm not (senryu times five)

I want you to know
I'm not brave or strong or sure
and still adore me.

I'm not brave, I just
know how to be, completely
still, waiting, silent.

I'm not strong, I'm just
attached like a barnacle
on wave beaten rock.

I'm not sure, I am
willing you to convince me
to be that woman.

For you I'll become
all you think I am (I'm not)
and prove us both wrong.

In response to Medusa

Doris was black like midnight in December.
She used to have hair like a white girl,
straightened with auburn highlights.
Saw her on a bus one day in Disney World,
of all places, round dark face
somehow brighter with an internal purpose,
her hair gone, cropped close to her crown.

Doris told me how she had wrestled with death
and won – for now – and in so wrestling faced
her true self and saw hate in her eyes,
that by straightening her hair she was hating
how she was born with thick course African hair,
she needed to be who she was to be free from Death,
free to live, while she could live.

In the cutting,
she felt a rush in her spirit,
a rush of life, of truth, of living water.
She drank it down full.
When I last saw her,
on that bus outside of Epcot,
she was a woman who loved herself and life.

My hair is thick and blonde from birth,
turning naturally brunette as I age.
I was raised believing
that over-forty women should keep their hair short,
else they look like they are trying to look young.
Though I believed as taught,
I never knew what that meant.

When I was younger, trying to look older,
I kept my hair shorter.
But as I move well past forty,
myself a mother now and
able to release the instruction of another age,
I’ve let my hair go where it may and grow.
I now recognize it as a gift from my creator.

It is thick and wavy
the envy of my friends.
I can go to sleep with it wet,
and it will obey me most mornings,
and when it has its own will,
it does not embarrass me.

Instead, it slowly, gently helps define me.
As it grows, something in me
lets go of old ideas – each half inch
another release – and embraces
new possibilities,
like the breaking of winter ice,
like redemption,
like Doris.

 
Written as response to: http://vesperinlimbo.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/medusa/

Rite of passage

When we crossed the creek,
you were nine, I was seven.
You jumped, I followed
in striped snowsuit, fell in, ran
dripping cold all the way home.