Catch and Release

My kitten climbing a staircase in moonlight
    – brilliant wash, dipped and accelerated by years, turns,
recognized again as foreign, as a stuck-on part,
    watch the pale fingers bend in moonlight
    watch them speak, and defend their indifference.

My cockroach scuttles
    - what’s over the hill, why do I need to know,
    what will they see of me on that other side ?
A haunted scolding still baffles me at times
and streams continue, out of my mouth from the headlands
    perpetuating a silent collusion.
I prepare in the legacy of rebuke.

My home a rhythm, patterned and printed
like the swirls on my feet – pilgrims
    feet meeting
    feet on top, feet rolling, coasting
starved for grit and sand,
one grain under my foot-palm enough I hope,
I hope.

  eat again – the clock’s telling
         and a buckled love, well handled, well thought of
         casts its seeds as a music and a fire
         in the untouchable
         because of a ransomed promise
         because of years, by moons and moons, with only hunger reminding me
   to eat again – the clock’s telling

My marrow woven like a mountain
decorating the walls, a lacy jewel and my precious flesh
signed in the bottom right hand corner
     wait       I’m trying to tell you again
because I AM some emissary        some kind of healer in a pocket
and your quilled fury is NOT LOST on my clay,
     but you know this don’t you?

My shadow living
in a world not scorched enough,
walking on rapids and talking endlessly about it all,
I cling to the rocks
until they leach my resolve.