I had a dream about you

and in it you were softer and holding me like

I would fall apart without your hands there and there

because you knew it was true, I would

fall apart

I had a dream about you and in it

you were harder and pushing into me like a punishment over and over

for all my lies

because you knew

I had a dream about you and in it

you put all the things inside your head down

& told me I could fill it with the things inside my own

I had a dream and you weren't

really in it at all but I called in the morning

and said you were

because I wanted you to think of me & how I hold onto your shadow when I am sleeping

this is how you will know I love you.

L'homme aux Bras Croisés

It leaves me open wound to show you,

knowing you

Two Junes now, knowing you

Met with impatience I am nerve exposed

a yucca turned silver in their age, and tumble

down down the mountain.

I want to take myself away from you as

if I am a privilege

Cast now salt circles round me

to cut you with my revocation 

so you may wonder if I was just dreams,

sweet & headaching

Same how I wonder 

bout the yarns were spun by you from lonely tongue

Promises to give me

moon belly!

and patience, and flowers

Have shame!

whisper when you speak such platitudes

October.

cricket’s chirp got lazy

and god did that make me angry

october found me snake-coiled waiting

on those chirping crickets but

they weren’t

eager

anymore

god, did that make me angry

tuesday at the Regent Theatre

Last night on the phone told Beast,

you better break my heart before you get old

and break down

we laughed, but I meant it

I know better than to scold a man with judgements he feeds himself

by the spoonful,

by the dripping handful, and so

swallow my worry worry

born of love

You could forgive a man for feigning ignorance

to the hands of a clock

He remembers a me whose tongue still spoke cursive

wrapped in electric corduroy

and sitting close to the exit

had so much shame in my throat then

like pushing two chairs together to make a bed

far from window

God forbid the boss see me asleep with the keys in my hand

Our own private trials played out matinée

it was gross to think ache belonged loyal to one or the other

but we were young & facing karmas earned before our time

too young to eat impermanence

And it made something of us

flowers growing nimble through the place of rest

golden island in right eye

lines in our palms only fortune tellers can read

Under gibbous he said

I love you

felt then like Moon bug caught out in the day

powdered wings to sing pleas against window pane

Try to make deals with the universe

breathed a long silence through the snow months

my brushes nearly all succumb to chatter teeth

and the first days of the Water Bearer tied knots in my gut

Thank gods for another Sabbat

to mark the distance we spun round sol

And what now?

It is love

to hand me golden knife and tell me careful

that he trust my hand

Heavy to let a woman hold blade at a whisper from his neck

and take from him the knots

I will wear bay laurel

bonne fête

gold now

& place myself between the punctuation

been swallowing your likeness back down my throat

since the witches' new year,

afraid to choke on it

but it was my own likeness got stuck in my throat

paint for the ticket and ride the dog south

arriving with palm at my neck to catch hangman's rope

asked me to stay the night

it's cold, you said, but I know your blood is hot

where did your shame go?

shoes on & waiting by the back door

a body knows the routine

by now

Tethered inextricably.

The bones that had wrapped me in just months ago in choking heat of August, turn hostile toward me now. We are a hundred dollars from home, the ground here white and grey with the slush of early winter. There were signs this was coming; stranger asks if she knows her name. Rat bones now steeped in a mix of gin and cheap beer shove violently, kick angrily, and slurred truths are laid between us that cannot be redacted. Damn the song of alcohol.

“Stay,” I say. “Fuck you”, she says.

I have never understood the meaning of grieving before now.

Last day in this city, I stretch my hands through telephone wire to Beast, looking for reprieve in borne witness. Alone in a coffee shop a thousand dollars away from his, I am met with terse reply, and my stretched hands retract by instinct as if I have touched fire. The word Saturnine rolls up from my throat and sits in my mouth like gravel. I scold myself to think of laying weight on his unsteady ground.

Gratitude comes now in overwhelming waves for Tyler’s shoulder, offered always in earnest. The ground between us has held more weight than I know how to audit, and he meets a sober burden with the same ease he gives my levity. I am so thankful for this soft man. An hour passes curled around Tyler’s voice through phone. Woman at the counter takes pity and buys me coffee. Feeling seen, I pack my bags and leave. I give the paper cup to a man flying sign on the corner. I don’t drink coffee.

I spend the next hour whispering prayers through the negative space left between red sandstone buildings in the port of Old Montreal. The last eight years shared with Rat rattle behind my eyes, animated by the sound of bus fare in my pocket. My nose pointed west now, on tracks that parallel the 401. Empty seat on the train home looks pointedly at me, chides with fickle voice wavering between accusation, regret, and relief.

I offered her the ticket.

Salt rings circle a spell for release. I cut the sprouted knots Rat tied into my hair, and burn them with sage. Prayers. When they are ash, burn the unsent letters addressed to a beige and powder blue Cleveland suburb. More prayers. I hold nothing but gratitude for these bonds; there weren’t any illusions of character to my love. Severance of one come hot on the tail of the other- must have been the stars, huh?

Tourmaline in my pocket, I smile an unexpected relief.

Back to work. There is paper to paint.

14 karat bar of soap

feel the augur’s absence-

tacit.

though he only

predicted omens

Magic, like before.

Rat circles her bones around me and I feel how hard these two years have been on her body. Her eyes are darker, her hair now matted into knots like mine. I had come home tail-tucked and barely breathing around the gall in my throat built up of two years worth of missed birthdays and missed death days, and unanswered letters. Apologizing felt vulgar and cheap.

“I understand,” she says, “just don’t leave me again.”

That night I tell her about a monster made in merry meet, trapped inside a body unwilling. She tells me about a man, and a dog and going up, and coming down. God’s grace. I was heart sick and she was dope sick, and we wanted to heal eachother, though neither of us spoke any of those cliches.

She asks me if I need any work, and I tell her no. She asks me if I’ll do some magic for her. “Like before.” And we take baskets to Mama Sue’s back fields and pick a hundred thousand mustard flowers, asking the bugs forgiveness for the disturbance.

We warm the oven for bread, and the oven warms the house, already August-hot.

Fold the flowers into a dough as stiff and dry as my magic. Those two years of living for another have turned my conjury shrill. I call my mum and plead for soft wisdom. Her words loosen something in me and the shift brings assurance to my hands. The bread is crumbly, and tastes like ginger and promise. Blessed be.

Autumn now and leaving again, for tents and dirt and the whisper of money. Rat asks if I’ll come back. Makes me promise. Says she might go up if I don’t come home. This isn’t a threat; my Rat is many things, but always earnest. She wants to know if I’m running from a beast. Wants to know if I’m trying to keep myself from repeating the mistakes made for a Dragon, the hopeful missteps made for a Bear, and I can’t answer that to even myself. But I’ll be home. I always come home. And we laugh.

In the place of the guilt at midsummer, there is now a tickle in my throat I might mistake for excitement.

In the moving- a coffin-sized chest full of yarn. Consider how patiently all those miles of string wait to be knit.