i want to swing in a hammock, limbs
entwined, and slow
see the leaves and their geometries
know that my children are nourished
full-bellied and warm with bare
feet and bright eyes
want my sad to erase
in plump fruit and salt air
the callus of dry, too dry,
and long so lone
away and now instead
some love a love big
love
that wraps around me and children
all.

g o d s

it is not that there are too many
godless women

it is that there are too many
womanless gods.

what if you
retired
and devoted your
self to
the basement.

what if you unplugged the phone and left
the cell phone downstairs buried
under a pillow
and after climbing the stairs
pulled
out the dusty boxes
of slides behind your clothes
in the closet
in the closet.

what if instead of
a trip to the other side of
the world
you won a scholarship
to stay home,
touching every
thing that hadn't been touched
in so long.

i keep throwing open the doors
missing something
maybe the air
maybe the light
maybe someone i don't quite
know, yet,
because of the cold
and prudence
i close the doors

only to go to them again
and outside
just a few
more times

To hear
i love you
anywhere

someone else's
in a crowd, walking past, standing still
on a bus
someone else's -
who, on the other end
is receiving, we will never know, yet
it is known
that they
are
Loved.

Something like catching
part
of an undressing
in a locker room
A total stranger's humble
transition
in view
entrusted then in
that somehow
holy?
maybe sacred space
that has no name or even appointment, room number
or assignment of any sort

I will call it
liminal
and
thank
god?
for this
accidental
trust
and vulnerable
admittance.

I am crazier
than you
But not
than that man
with the strange
bags
walking past.

I have
put it squarely on me
Handed me, I have
this
Warriortask

Some journey of all journeys
A choice of some choices
Am I light enough
To allow it its Go
Let it burn right through
Me?
But not be consumed
Or eaten and torn
Any more than
Already the insides
Of me
Register
like a minefield
Like a strip mine
Like that screaming woman
In that alley who you think is a
Raving
lunatic bitch
But I know
Is all the women
We've all
ever never known.