Ash

Ash is blind and boneless, but flies.

Colored flames flare the leaf that dies.

For a moment, the madman lucid.

Sweet milk in the sun turns putrid.

The bonfire kills the thing it lights.

Ash is blind and boneless, but flies.

You may find that devils may care

To catch and keep you with them there.

The young may sigh, slow, and sicken

to find their tongues gray and thickened.

Ash is blind and boneless, but flies.

A snare denies its bird the skies.

Don't be so proud, sure and boasting.

See the rooster, plucked and roasting.

The grave may loose the one who dies.

Ash is blind and boneless, but flies. 

_______

for Sunday Muse #182. This is a quatern. Thanks to LiJade.

I Was Old When I Fell In Love

I was old when I fell in love.
You should have seen the local teenagers--
so respectful as they removed my heavy groceries,
my shoulder bag
and my house keys.

My blood had gone sluggish in my veins,
like the biddy who holds up the drug store line,
blindly picking ancient coins from a tiny purse.
Is that a penny or a dime?
Systolic or diastolic?
How much was it, again?

Oh go ahead, laugh.
I was old when I fell in love,
like the bird that goes bright after blundering into a window--
red as a June rose, 
sliding slowly down the pane,
as elegant as a silent-era diva expiring in the fourth reel.

And my beloved?
She bakes, and goes up in the trees 
searching the branches all morning long.
In late afternoon when I begin to nod,
she tells me there is a future for everyone.
Then she offers me cake,
fluff filled with holes,
made to rise with crossed fingers, oil, and eggs.
_______

angel for brick birds

i'm an angel for brick birds,
and a healer for the crack-toothed cats who catch them.
i'm a tall-shelf girl with the boardinghouse reach,
fetching orphans each a blanket and an anthem.

i stitch long blue feathers for my brick birds' backs,
and dog star tails when they fan them.
my oven bakes the bricks til they're light as morning mist,
then the ashes circle sun and moon in tandem.

i'm a weekday angel
whistling for the wrong,
the bruised, the broken,
the disowned in the dawn;

i mix a sweet healing balm,
turn the jar into a song,
roll it out into the street
and then i'm gone.
________

written for Magpie Tales #196, and dedicated to Kelli and Joy, who both like it when I rhyme.
 

Rosary

I have a rosary made of birds.
I have an ache made of your absence.

When I am praying, the birds stay with me. Stars replace them.
This is my arrangement with the sky at sunset.

Sometimes passing trucks sing the street; other times footsteps.
Sometimes God laughs; other times She is silent.

Holding birds in one's hands is holy.
My hands know your name, and the braille of my body in its longing.

I always say the same prayer, to be nearer to you.
I have a rosary made of birds.
_______