My Name Is Not Mavis

Just To Say

Just to say like a note on the fridge,
Or a message etched in sand
That can only be read from the cliffs.
Just to say like prayers that are ancient and rote,
And journals that are never reread.
Just to say like stones arranged
In the desert to show the way,
Or sacred stands of trees
That move without leaving.
Just to say nothing within the silence
Of everything over and over again.

Do You Want To Start a Fire?

1.
Tell me I can’t.
Try to censure the swing of my hips.
Judge my free fall of words and deeds.
Pop the bubble of my goodwill.
Start a trend toward disrespect.
Attach a sign to my back that says:
Not quite. Inappropriate. What is she thinking?

2.
What you don’t know:
What you seem to not get:
What you fail to understand:
I’ve been tending the flame,
Crouched deep inside myself,
Protecting my flicker of light
With cupped hands and a curved back
To keep it safe. To keep it burning.
Whispering promises to myself that
Someday. Someday it will be time.
Someday the howling wind of
Derision and contempt won’t matter.
Someday I will take all that fuel
Collected around me
And I will strike a match.

3.
In case my instructions are not clear,
Let me restate:
I have no interests in a controlled burn.
So come on. Come at me. Do your best.
Just make sure you are ready to run
When the fire becomes wild.
More than the common world can manage.

The Last Red Rose

I’d never considered the old rose
on the branch to be the most lovely—
But I am learning that it is she
in the dead of winter
that grasps the stem
with the fiercest tenacity of hope.

Chance Encounters with Strangers

Muttering like a mad woman
I walk unnoticed.
Words slip through my lips.
Vengeful. Angry. Sacred.
Powerful in their emptiness
Because I only say them to me.
Justified as a hidden sun.

Until I turn a corner
And encounter you.
An abrupt stop that makes all the words
Spill on the pavement
And evaporate as if they never were.
My shattered-glass heart dances like diamonds.
Even though the wary world
Continues to revolve around us.

Blue

The blue of the house matched the blue of the sky that matched the blue of her eyes when she was born into my arms and I an unlikely mother that dyed myself blue to match the blue of my boy who was never my man in the blue twilight of our years where I laid down in a solitary field content in the blueing wonderment of my condition.