Hands spin ticking off old hours
our fingertips flick past fresh posts
ghosts of silent laughs and gasps 
grasping at our backs and beckoning
us toward reckoning with the rewards
hard won and wired into our brains
trained to fire joy off like guns
automatically responding to thumbs
and hearts and hands replicated
insatiable thirst for perception
desperately fearing deflection
destruction of our carefully framed
faces and names wild places tamed
racing to bottomless brunch mimosas
forever refreshing but never
addressing our pulpy fictions
friction bubbling under sunny skies
wise words forgotten as bunny hops
cops tried and the crying never stops
just so many digital tears 
tearing through our motherboards
another hoarder holding the heat
taken and shade thrown under
thundering buses backed up
stuck and cussing out cups and 
handcuffs for cutting us in line
time and time and time and time
wasted worrying who when what
why and why and why and why
hold     that     which     can     not     stop?

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

I come to myself my phone in one hand and a candle in the other
set for the expansive, expanding universes they reveal.
One we fall through in tandem, hand-in-hand,
float and flit, flicked and flowing, swept 
by so many streams. But the other,
this webbed and dusty attic,
must be mine alone.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

If I can't be your beacon, 
let me be your bay,
if not your bay, 
your shore,

or hoist your arms up wide
and hold my breeze.
Let me carry you
and you me.

Whether we stand apart,
deep seas between us,
or sail atop them,
shipmates,

we sing the only melody
either of us knows,
our voices wide
and high.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

One more stone is all the cairn can hold;
earth's riches move lump by lump.

Two is too is to juggle is to drop;
each blaze only lights the way to the next.

Three assemble forming four and five hums;
multiplied, seep to flood and flow to rush.

Six feet clear an easy path for seven, alone.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

I can't help but misspeak my history,
miss uncomfortable subtexts
and gloss over little mysteries.

The sheen is a shield 
that keeps my soft parts unprodded,
my daily trauma triggers unplucked.

Because once thrummed,
these strings can echo unchecked,
a minor wire sizzling with too much heat.

So stand before my upturned feet
to witness what their roughness reveals
about the smooth myths my two lips repeat.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

the mind flows
the body dams
hinder and drive
slipping and held
emotions billow
steam and downpour
the skin receives
the muscle seizes
the bone remembers
the brain jumps
conclusions fall
pool and wellspring
returned and fresh
freeze and seeping
the mind dams
the body flows

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Pull back the curtains, my bleary-eyed loves, 
for morning's warmth awaits.
Peek through the blinds at first, if you must, but
know that your fear must melt
with the dripping icicles that slowly
release their grip and fall
shattering to their ends; it's best to throw
the window open, know
the swords that threaten you, to see their shine 
so you may recognize
the lies they ask you to internalize.
Night may seek to lull you
into the comfort of the status quo.
But morning lets you watch
your cell bars tilt, fade and fall, mere shadows.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

scalpel's edge couldn't slice
the refracted sunrise
casting spectrum swatches 
across my chest and arm,
couldn't remove orange
from red, purple from blue,
just as it fails to take
wick from flame, flame from smoke,
and curling smoke from air,
take one breath from the next,
take reflection from glass,
the mulling of new paths
from the choice to take them,
the front heel's push into
fresh sand from the back heel's
slow peel out of the past

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

our bones know
how to stack themselves 
to stand
where to meet and slide
to step and sit
how to fit
when we need to hide 
and unfurl
to cup our weight
our feet feel
each heave and sigh
each turn of the wheel
every curl
as our bellies toil
to unpack the world
into easy pieces
mere blocks to stack
to strengthen and flex
our shoulders decks
holding our heads above water
blades slicing down our backs
to hoist our sails
tails anchored
tucked under overflowing bowls
and rooted to sea floor
no anemone 
all wiggle and flow
could know what secrets
our caged chests hold

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Sit with me, friends, 'neath Newton's mythic tree
to feel its roots reach below so deeply

as its arching branches soar high above.
Could there be any question of its love? 

That in its balance, strength? In its strength, light?
That it shines as it shades and bends with might? 

That in its quiet curves, its knots and bows
it answers all our queries, whys and hows?

Like how to keep on standing as storms rage
or why we fight the book but love the page.

Though its rough bark may wake us to life's pains,
its eager leaves protect us from the rains.

And when old forces push us to new lows,
sit with me, friends, to learn all that it knows.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Let breath move you, my loves,
step after aching step.
Let your sighs slip from your heel
to ease gently into your past,
as your toe reaches ahead
onto unknown sand.
Fill your lungs with possibility
that propels you forward,
weight spilling and spreading
across your wide, flat sole,
rooting you to your nowness
from this now to the next.
Let the black hole behind you,
forever spinning underneath,
pull apart the breath you leave behind,
the steps taken,
impressions made.
Let its endless churning devour
every step, each regret,
for new ground, fresh air awaits.
My loves, let breath move you.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week