Ode to an Old Grey Sweatshirt

I.

Dear you,
  Do you remember winters in Tallahassee-
more Georgia than Florida-I slid into you perfectly?
You were there as I became someone I was barely aware I was becoming.

II.

Dear you,
   I think sometimes now, I search for you
in the sleeves and pockets of others.
Test their weight on my shoulders to see if it feels the same--
it hasn't yet.

III.

Dear you,
   It's funny, I can see a blurry panorama of our years together;
never solid on the memory of when we first met, but
I can tell you distinctly how we parted:

A crisp November night, I was jetlagged and bedraggled, clutching
Logan struggling against my lap.
I felt his last breath through your threadbare length
and knew that moment was imprinted in you
knew, I'd never be comforted by you again.

The next afternoon we covered his body with you, a shroud
buried you both and hoped
you gave him half the comfort you always gave me.

PAD 2016 9

It is easy
to allow a stranger to take my hand
trace lines in my palm that I have played with for years
for them to say "see,
we are all the same; deep lines:
we have lived, are living..."

It is easy and not frightening
how simple it is that we might be the same.

PAD 2016 8

I am all anticipation
it's how I know this is home.

PAD 2016 4

Even when I think I am
I am rarely as on time as I at first believe
counting seconds while everyone else is tracking hours
and minutes while they're on days;
asynchronous, I am a shifting of sands.

PAD 27

There is anger resonating
and it unbalances the world.

PAD 23

My cells explode
multiply into a billion other pieces of me
a dividing particle
a tiny evolution under my skin.

PAD 19

There's a song somewhere quiet;
playing on repeat
only your heart can hear its rhythm.

PAD 18

Even if I think about it everyday,
all day or
my daydreams have become so realistic
that I shiver walking
I will allow patience to prevail,
will allow my will the space to show-off.

PAD 17

Grey skies
streaking rain
and leaves.

Smeared pollen
dissolving new blossoms
and watering the concrete.

PAD 16

My hands are calloused
and scarred
chipped nails and stained
but they have lived
struggled, fought--
and they are mine.

PAD 14

When you gaze in the mirror
is it your reflections that stares back
or a shade of your past life looking pass
your gaze.

PAD 13

Drifting
we shift into newer skins
and newer selves.

PAD 12

I could spend lifetimes
curled in upon myself
swimming myself out through
the ocean of me.

PAD 11

Things I own:

A faulty heart,
scarred skin stretched over life-tensed bones.
A home,
old and getting older, but with a solid foundation-a warmth.
A terminally weak stomach,
knuckles spring broken, clenched against daylight.
A car,
small, but bigger than it looks, t.a.r.d.i.s. on wheels.
A brain that digests knowledge,
chipped and encrusted nail beds clawing for anything to hold me up.

PAD 10

There is a full body groove
in my couch, a mold
I could live in its comfortable arms.

PAD 9

These days are all blending down to one
a kaleidoscope,
mish-mash of blurred scenes.

PAD 8

When I think of this year
what I will see most will be static
white noise of trying to tune into the universe.

PAD 7

How can we forget chains?
They melted them down to forge bars and bullets.

PAD 6

They say if we
are more polite
sit up straighter
quantify our desires with more "pleases" and "thank you's"
and "yes sirs" and "ma'ams" and "boss"
If we are
quieter
neater
bow-tied and shoe-shined
They will allow us to survive and thrive--
up to a tangible point.

PAD 5 2015

Prayers hang in the air,
over-ripened fruit
desiring the universe because they asked politely.

They sing hymns
to the risen, the rose, the rising

The dead
or dying.  The shackled moaning.

A ghost

Apparitions of faith.