All eyes, onward we reach;
gaze manifesting our way.
These lips, cotton-mouthed
and kept dry by invisible
threats and sodden cheeks.
Lashes batting away breezes,
teases and taunts: why butterfly,
you beat so heavily and in peace.
Born of liquid and bound to
earth before tempting air,
you take a form that overcomes
what held you. Up into
the night, we fly. Wide lens
and deep periphery flitting
between our foci. Don’t lie
still. Stir and unsettle. Cover
your full-throated pleadings
with coated pills and soulful
greetings; heal and fill. Well up
and tear. Blink and see, again.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

The drone of justice whirs
quietly in the distance,
maneuvering around plots
and beds, not always with care. 

It repeats and sputters,
turning up stones and slicing
away the overgrowth:
a called-for trim.

The sweat of its operator 
settles above ruffled brow 
and squinting eye, drying
slowly in the morning sun.

Their last patch crossed, 
motor cut, they wipe and sigh,
enjoy the fresh scent of their labor
and move on to the next.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Listen, my loves, but not for me,
for I merely echo and repeat.
Listen, my loves, for the crack and the strain
of chords wrapping taut around his name,
his name, his name, his name, his name.
Feel it pop in your ears and thrum:
beats dropping, beating drops, throat numb.
Listen for the humming 
and listen for the hymn.
Listen for the chants and threats
and listen for the ring of bells 
cracked and horses reared. Listen 
for crumbling altars and listen 
for mother’s tears as they echo,
crawling and gasped across the desert 
of her cheek, so scarred by white men’s fears.
Listen for black voices and repeat their urgent cries.
My loves, if we do nothing, love itself surely dies.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Take in memories.
Feel them swirl
through your nostrils
and billow within
cavernous lungs:
pillows of past
humblings and pride
fillings and fear
swells and quells,
unexpected joys,
shudders and thrills
to rest your head on
and wind your day down.
Let their oxygen
feed you, stream
tributary to
muscle and mind,
leaving droplets
of doubt or regret
to cling, carbon-bound
and blown back
through pursed lips
into ether, ready
for sun’s bake or
time’s turn to cleanse.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Glee cracks open grizzled face,
beckoned up by sky-plucked rays
and warmed by the sun’s embrace. 

A tangle of digits sways,
clasping and crowding. We rise
again to spiral our ways

around a stone as it flies.
Hands outstretched to catch its pace;
hope grown high behind our eyes.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Stone walls fly by,
stacked high, high up
to heaven and higher,
protecting our fire,
our shore. Leaving
harsher roads behind,
finding softer curves
ahead to swoon over,
you intone lover’s song,
some tune too still and
settled to groan our heavy
loads into atwitter.
A bigger melody
builds below, a new 
awareness creeping
up from sea blue waters
that we hum at night and
hope wafts into her
arms spread wide over
us all.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Open your ears to the breeze, dear one,
Hear it sigh across your skin.
And with your tongue outstretched toward the sun,
My love, taste the warmth it feeds within. 
Set down your aching bones near the base of a tree,
And reach up its trunk with your spine.
Feel its bark push back into your weight and see
Its roots yearn like your arms for mine.
And if when your eyes flutter wide your gaze holds
Nothing but a mossy, damp stare,
Just smell the deep exhale that uncurls and unfolds
Like your sweet fingers through my hair.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Breath slips over the bend of my bottom lip and swiftly
unfurls into the space above my kitchen-table-desk
setting little bits of me-stuff about, dancing their ways
around Shift keys, paper days and the spatulas beyond,
an invisible do-si-do. 

There’s no knowing these days
if those twirling air-bits — mine and now no longer mine — 
hold dangerous potential, some villainous plot afoot
to take up drying dishes and tango them half to death
with lecherous delight, or if childlike they flit and flop.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

New growth slices up through soaked soil,
Fingering its way to heaven, bursting. 
Pushes aside worms and pebbles to feel
Warm sun pulsate and energize, rises,
Back arched and face lifted upward with an 
Elated grin. Beaming. Its arms reach out,
Palms open for morning breeze to tip-toe
Between its fingers; a cool embrace that
Gently lifts it into half-flight, grounded,
Afloat on air pillows, brave as a child 
Spinning high above an uncle’s embrace.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

That’s more like it, we decide,
Chin reaching most of the way
Over shoulder, eyes slipping
Out into the downpour, jaw clenched. 

Clouds of rain blow off roof-tops
To blend with fresh hordes, their weight
Somehow crippling and nothing 
At all. Blustering about. Dead,

Yet somehow living. Breath 
Fills air pockets with new wealth, 
Face slackens, blinds open wide,
And eyes slide back to other windows.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Thanks be to the blue of the sky,
Crystalline, serene and pale.
Thanks be to the breeze at my back
That reaches around my gait.
Thanks be to the ground underfoot,
So supportive of my stance.
Thanks be to the soil that holds
All our secrets. All our ghosts,
Thanks be to their slow, icy gaze
As it ripples down my spine.
Thanks is all I can give the days,
All that I feel can be mine.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week