Before
morning,
she wakes,
adrift
still
in half-remembered dreams,
dirtied by ghost footprints
upon the waking
to muddy tread marks ever present,
no matter the hours spent in scrubbing—
the marks indelible—
tattoos of mud.
Leave her to the simple tasks of morning,
to her daily reckoning,
preparations of covers and cases required,
all the hiding away,
layering as if for winter,
this bandaging of tender spots.
shattered on the floor
my favorite coffee mug
nothing big, not much of a thing,
just my favorite coffee mug--
sunshine yellow, with coffee beans,
and a coffee spoon printed inside at the top
along with a line from my favorite poem,
“I have measured out my life in coffee spoons”
yes, trite, you might say, emblazoned upon a coffee mug
but still, yes, I loved the mug, love the poem.
and there it was—
shattered upon the floor
there she stood,
apologizing—ad nauseam—
saying she’d buy another to replace it.
But it was not to be found.
Of course, the store didn’t have them anymore.
The mug was the first broken thing.
The first of a few, if it wasn’t liked,
didn’t fit into the ideal
of what could be
forged of me
if pinched in the grip of tongs
and held in the fire long enough
to be broken down to a molten,
malleable state, pounded upon the anvil,
shaped, dipped in water to sizzle cool enough
to start the process over again—
for easy fracture.
Many things ended up broken,
shelved, stored in closets—
pictureless frames and frameless pictures,
parts of me
hidden away, never to be seen
sitting on shelves
in black closets—
until I emerged
chipped but no worse for wear
unbroken into the light.
When trying to respond to Eugenia’s prompt this week, this poem, which I posted a couple of years ago kept coming into my head, and no matter how I tried, it would not go away. In this reposting, it is my hope that it serves some purpose. Perhaps, someone will gather something from it.
My scars flames–
The sides of my back,
pock marked brown
drying dark
if not daily oiled in
the red, orange, white
of flames,
trailing once welted scars,
faded, now barely.
if even seen–
Feathered flames
enabling flight,
if I should like,
or if I so prefer,
burning back past paths
behind so I may fly
to places I wish,
keeping promises
to my soul.
My scars flame–
Only I see
and only I know
the power contained
in my flaming scars.
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