the bones of this land

i grew up on a mining claim in the mountains of central arizona. bear with me. i grew up in a nice-enough house on the poor side of a small town in the mountains of central arizona. i walked to school every day, got a job in a thrift store when i turned 15, and…

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the perseids fall

the perseids fall. the weather breaks, sharp heat turning to sudden wind and sometime rain. i stand at the kitchen sink, scrubbing what remains of your life. a photo of the most beautiful work your hands ever made. the thing itself long since rotted by mountain rains and sometime sun. a license plate with your…

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the heat of this night

i stand in a twilit field watching the water ease in, watching flickering bats hunt mosquitoes, watching you prepare to leave again. the water seeps over dry soil, finds every fissure, pours in. the bat careens in circles, appearing and disappearing against a darkening sky, feasting and frantic. you load the last boxes into your…

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what to remember

remember not that you argued with your sister, but that you sang in the kitchen alone, and the house remembered a sound it had not heard in years. remember fireflies blinking slowly in the roadside dark and a night sky as open as the Arizona night sky – remember, on the last night, every star…

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bells

all night my sleep is troubled by bells. outside, the bronze bell from my wedding, the arcosanti bell, three leaping fish on the clapper, plays in the wind of a passing storm. your love enfolds me from afar, a molecular cloak. it is in your sweatshirt that i will not take off. it is in…

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winter can wake me when you return

the dawn sky cracks with birdsong. wild geese fly over in a noisy mass, autumn spilling from their wingbeats. you leave my side, your silhouette disappears through the doorway into a grey morning, one shadow vanishing into another. weeks will pass before i see you again. i do the only thing i can, and go…

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bruises

you pulled the bruises off the inside of my heart, gave them shape, punched them right on up to the surface where this broken skin can heal can be no more than broken skin no less than a healed heart.

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present with something burning

you rest in a body of water with fire cupped in your hand. you are a waterfall, grief & change & love, and you are present with something burning. even at rest, your body moves. you are alive to your own changes, casually shedding sparks in the chill night air. when i rise from the…

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