housework

Today while on my hands and knees
scrubbing the kitchen floor,

I watched the brush circling clockwise in my left hand while thinking:
I've far too much to offer the world than spending my days
coaxing up dirt from crevices in trivial places.

Then I pushed my weight back slightly to my knees
to slide the brush over to my right hand.

While watching the brush circling counter-clockwise in that hand I realized:
My nihilistic core pushed me down to days
spent kneeling on kitchen floors in the first place.

reincarnation

Today the earth is again my siren,
playing that deafening song to lull me

back home within it's clay, so to recast my bones
with the hopes of molding them into a clean
new

form.

crawl

I couldn't get that image out of my mind...

three spiny claws
clutching pavement
in the black pitch,

dragging its broken bones forward
instinctually. One eye turning
white and complete
upon contact with our lights.

The drivers brain couldn't register
the reality of this tragedy quick enough
as the animal dragged its broken fur
across the asphalt.

Just then the car lifted us slightly,
our tires severing the mangled back half
from the ardently willed front half.

red nails

I never could have imagined when I painted each fingernail bright red two weeks ago for a wedding...
that I'd be taking the festive color off of each nail today for a funeral.