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