SOFT POEM

I came
I slept
I came
I looked up
The sky was the blue
Of a baby powder bottle
From a country
That no longer
Exists
The softest breeze
Touched the
Honeysuckle perimeter
I was feeling a
Little nice
Current in my body
Nikola are you with me
Gods of thunder
Ancestors
If I called out to you
Would you answer
In this land

MOONRING

While I sit here thinking
Of the apocalypse
Leaves are bouncing
Moonbeams against my window
Like heartstrings
Did they always know
This song?

After all the shows
I’ve watched and stories
I read
After what I saw my family
Survive will I stand and
Fight
Fight against what?

Tell me, moonbeams
Little fists
Smacking the window
Which way to turn and in
What language to say
What thing
And to whom.

I keep thinking
I don’t deserve to be here.
Not in this body
This family
Not in this country or the other.
I keep thinking
I need to do something

And I do all the things
With the dread and joy
Of someone cursed hoping.
Eyes in my fingernails
Stare me in the eye
When I type
They are my honor

Every word a nail
Holding a promise to
A wall… will it be full
In the end of desperate notes
Crafted by moonbeams
In seasickness
Or totally empty?

This time of month
I leave myself a ring
On a beam of moon
That I can wear again
When I’m small enough again
To bear the weight
Of my name.

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