sometimes a particle

a clip of one of the two poems I performed at this past weekend’s Albuquerque Aerialist Collective show, A Curated Exhibition of the Lost & Found. this video was taken at rehearsal the night before the show. by opening night, i had actually managed to memorize that line at the end.

my dad, and the girl scouts, taught me how to read a map.
to interpret topography, climb a mountain, return home.
to carry a compass at all times, and to use it.
if you have this, you can never get lost.
for years i kept one in my purse.
now i remember your crooked brown finger,
tracing the line, then pointing out the ridge.
now i map my past, trace roads and ridges
on satellite maps, hunt out your old campsites,
feel the curve of the land and the road in
the shape of my childhood,
to find my way back to you.
to bring what is left of your body
and what is left of my childhood,
back to one place,
and feel that long sunlight,
and the ash in my hands.

Metamorphosis & Mayhem

poetry performance
with
Lisa Gill, Erin Daughtrey & Tani Arness

January 24th, 2016
at Tortuga Gallery

Join us for a poetry reading featuring new and collaborative work by

Tani Arness
Erin Daughtrey
Lisa Gill
and
Kat Heatherington

4pm at Tortuga Gallery
901 Edith SE
$5

We have a collaborative poem in four voices for the finale — this will be a one-of-a-kind experience!

A limited-edition chapbook including work by each of the four of us will be available at this event. The door-price gets you a copy of the chapbook! Chapbooks will also be available for purchase from the poets after the reading.

i woke to blood like a waterfall between my legs
and a spider newly living on the door.
all night i had dreamed you were lying beside me,
our bodies soft with sleep conjoined
the darkness thickened by our linked breath.
in the rising light of day there is only the cat
with her needs as soft as mine,
grandmother spider framed
in sunlit stitches of her own devise,
and the blood between my legs to remind me,
time passes, even in dreams.