Michele

“Aubade with a Broken Neck"

The first night you don’t come home
summer rains shake the clematis.
I bury the dead moth 1 found in our bed,
scratch up a rutabaga and eat it rough
with dirt. The dog finds me and presents
between his gentle teeth a twitching
nightjar. In her panic, she sings
in his mouth. He gives me her pain
like a gift, and I take it. I hear
the cries of her young, greedy with need,
expecting her return, but I don’t let her go
until I get into the house. I read
the auspices the way she flutters against
the wallpaper’s moldy roses means
all can be lost. How she skims the ceiling
means a storm approaches. You should see
her in the beginnings of her fear, rushing
at the starless window, her body a dart,
her body the arrow of longing, aimed,
as all desperate things are, to crash
not into the object of desire,
but into the darkness behind it.”
― Traci Brimhall, Rookery

“The life of comparison is deadly. One is always more than or less than and it is based upon a brief proof which tends to be seen as emotional but is in fact bereft of emotion. Comparison is so subtle a force it exposes itself in the guise of emotion to protect its own cunning from being seen as the judgmental emphasis it is.”
― Michael Burkard, My Secret Boat: A Notebook of Prose and Poems

“Some days they confuse the walls of their cage with their skin.”
― Traci Brimhall, Our Lady of the Ruins

“Away

There is no sorrow
Time heals never;
No loss, betrayal,
Beyond repair.
Balm for the soul, then,
Though grave shall sever
Lover from loved
And all they share.
See the sweet sun shines
The shower is over;
Flowers preen their beauty,
The day how fair!
Brood not too closely
On love, on duty;
Friends long forgotten
May wait you where
Life with death
Brings all to an issue;
None will long mourn for you,
Pray for you, miss you,
Your place left vacant,
You not there.”
― Walter de la Mare