Betsy

“A doctor once told me I feel too much. I said, so does god. that’s why you can see the grand canyon from the moon.”
― Andrea Gibson

“I’ve written this poem before but always through a window, never through an open door.”
― Andrea Gibson

“I wrote too many poems in a language I did not yet know how to speak
But I know now it doesn't matter how well I say grace
if I am sitting at a table where I am offering no bread to eat
So this is my wheat field
you can have every acre, Love
this is my garden song
this is my fist fight
with that bitter frost
tonight I begged another stage light to become that back alley street lamp that we danced beneath
the night your warm mouth fell on my timid cheek
as i sang maybe i need you
off key
but in tune
maybe i need you the way that big moon needs that open sea
maybe i didn't even know i was here til i saw you holding me
give me one room to come home to
give me the palm of your hand
every strand of my hair is a kite string
and I have been blue in the face with your sky
crying a flood over Iowa so you mother will wake to Venice
Lover, I smashed my glass slipper to build a stained glass window for every wall inside my chest
now my heart is a pressed flower and a tattered bible
it is the one verse you can trust
so I'm putting all of my words in the collection plate
I am setting the table with bread and grace
my knees are bent
like the corner of a page
I am saving your place”
― Andrea Gibson

“I don't want more sense!" I said loudly, beating against the silence of the room. "Not if sense means I'll stop loving anyone. What is there besides people that's worth holding on to?”
― Naomi Novik, Uprooted