always or never.

Always or never.

I was thistles of charms

I was stems of perennial secrets

Forever June in pearl a casket

All lost hearts rested inside sea caves

Paper dolls hid in flower boxes

My head spun for nothing

Until it turned into milk glass

& sweet sweat summers &

For- hiding- willow trees

(breathe out, you must)

It’s the seahorse in your eyes

The coating of your hands upon mine

The fake champagne too

I sense I am that still

& only just like this, near you

Please stay with me! always

Or never.  

(from my collection Heart Drumming)

 

Girl with Time

Morning love

I’ve got my

Eyes on you

Peripherally

One fourth of you

Is still smashing

A smidgen of a maybe light in your eye

Is a buttercup flower

A chocolate filled with valentine

An edge of a cliff

A trance

A slap in the face

A dance

A delicate chain

Attached to a star

To pull, neatly

As we unite

Dusk dreams

Still love

Midnight 

 

She often loves, in circles

She often fades like ice

There are many stars she’s chosen

But wandering is her vice

& like an old carousel, she’s broken

Beautiful, though tired

Still late at night if you press her

-She sounds just like her colors...

 maven.

You watch me like a fire

And I rise in the moon for it

Lighting you all-true-blue

Darling, say you’re staying

We are resonating now

Like panther claws

& sweet ivy

All the pain I’ve bottled up

Grabs your heart like drowning

Nothing that matters is

Almost with you

All these baby stems & a tragedy

I, the maven, of bittersweet.

(Excerpt from "A Crowded Place" by Amy Fairweather)

You happened upon me that day

Though in the distance, you stood out

As beautiful familiarity often does

Like fish caught up inside a stream

We were trapped in the crowd

I smiled in surprise

You barely smiled back and shifted your gaze

You could not look at me, not solely

You sent a considerate nod

And then moved through the throng

To somewhere

Anywhere but near me, it seemed

And that was all

You had nothing I ever imagined for me...

 

 

 

There were mornings

When the sun would shine through

My window like a glass gate

I’d turn to my side

And feel the day to be

Like a sea of first breath

Now evening falls in a perched land

I lie in bed like a fish hook

And there, I see him again

A man waits for my lights return

A boy says he loves me like fresh earth in my arms

My heart is a box of letters

Threaded to a violet star