4 poems

1:

naming

“daughter!”

says a mother—i am a crystal glass again this morning

light streaming in through the heat markers

rivulets steaming

prisms bleeding

rounding blown glass pain minerals sown in my own mother’s belly 

cracked pecans collard greens

I took a tooth for calcium

she was born on the kitchen table

the afterbirth spilled out across the dirt floor

the ground drank my grandmother’s blood

who healed her cooling fire with silica

what was in the prayer

cinnamon

palm oil 

neem

even the deep cut even in fragility

i retain my own full pear shape 

clarity remains 

a vision 

clear as a desert night dream

sun

slips into pinks

woman I know

rosy light in the morning

many wounds

kills in the night

sunflower face

a knife under the mattress cuts the pain purple bruises for my hips

bite my lip alone

coyote echos a trickster name splits before I can catch it

but I see he left moon hanging on the neighbors porch

next to the chile ristras we strung together with twine before her bad times came

good harvest

welcoming

remains a restless blessing

sounding out shapes I hear the

turquoise bells

she brought back from the sea

ring out in a dry Chinook

who can name the wind

I dream of my father bringing us fish again

I will know you when I see you

you will tell me then

2:

i am a midday meaning a short walk into the backdrop of a high noonday sun

still warm still fair

where it was hung before songbirds on ice shelves

before turtles aging in hidden places 

i am a purple velvet bag full of coins scraped from tables

gold string

pulling night down

small drawn quartered

a secret stash of ancestors

in the stars

day put away in a junk drawer

strangers plunder

unused gadgets

lids without jars

extra batteries

in case the lights burn out before dawn

3: Sakura—

cloistered in fragility

transient flower springs

tart and pitted blushing bright

did you suckle the cameo moon

pinned like a broach at the throat of your nursemaid

who laid sard between the breasts of your mother

to ease

the pain of you

a Mexican chocolate rebellion

there was nothing left to do

lick the lips her cold kiss sweet

she opened up too soon

dark blood drifter

dark blood drifter

agate black night is your lover now

onyx for Venus her fingernails clipped

you are as fleeting as the joy she felt

the first time you moved in her womb

4: brined

she flows through you

veined inherent hint of blue 

these phases of ice move according to your mood

super critical fluid loosed by extremely hostile environments 

yet she can never get enough

even at the boiling point the volcanic plumes of you when the pressure is on

the mean depths at the ocean floor she surrenders

dust dry throat

cloaked in floods

downpour deluge

cruel

gentle mistress

would you sacrifice her

to make sure you have more

did you protest your mothers womb were you separated too soon

from your love of water