Lacuna

1.
a moment like any other moment
what brings this afternoon to life
useful is a useful word
all-purpose for shifted angles of sunlight
and engendered shadows
the penumbra of my intent

a garden shredded with the onset of
end-of-May heat, furrowed soil
pensive and aloof following a
thorough tearing-out-ofs
awful tree limbs want to hug me
a spattering of my imagined rain
 
2.
your journal words invested with too much memory
when only curly serifs and colored ink fill in the blanks
interest accrues as pages turn and take their places
in your unchanging past

far sailing ships are built on land
perforce a flush of wing-like pages
will lead you to, into, and away from
your dry dock

[RK, 5/24/21]

Bears 2

have you circled around to
your dainty kitchenette
the elusive click as you
pour water from a teakettle
blackberry stains on granite
countertops, flour caked apron,
the slight almost-burn at the edge
of the crust, birthed anew

you’ve cleared the trail, found
a Möbius strip loop leading
back to the pantry, spring pan,
leaky faucet, pie filling
full of promise, grandmother’s recipe
for happiness encapsulated
in handfuls, pecks, and bushels
reach in and pull out stars.

[RK, 5/24/21]


Bears 3

you try to avoid excess simple sugars
opting instead for complex carbohydrates
yet there’s that bucket hidden
in your studio, where you sprinkle
white grains on dark stitched artwork
it soaks into the paper, hidden from
well-meaning and critical friends

the pawprints of childhood wallpaper
your linear houses, your daydream of
thumbs, plums, a cooling blackberry
moment on a depression-era windowsill
a scattering of rice on the forest trail
the trousseau, the bear, the bride unbound

[RK, 5/24/21]

Bears 4

his startled look when he finds
that window unlatched and open
burglary tools forgotten in the
waves of your even breathing

[RK, 5/24/21]


Embarrassment

literal, with flushed skin and speeded up
heart rate
or
figurative, with glued together
broken cups
or
allusive, with the garden stand-in
in the wings

[RK, 5/24/21]


Your Image of a Plastic Turquoise Chair Caught in a Fence

sequestered beneath layers of Cambrian rock
slate for the records you make of each
autistic tic removed from the commonplace

I admire your gem-colored persistence
your ability to see ‘sitting’ where there is
only discarded furniture

I want to say useless, but nature teaches
that everything has a purpose, preordained
positions on the wheel of fortune

you’ve decided to take it with you, in
memory, dreams, words, images, in
the bundle you found on the doorstep

the racing heart and chipped serving dish
function like a bird’s bill, built for
service, it holds the promise of repetition

in layer upon layer upon layer

[RK, 5/24/21]

5.29 P.M.

those shadows irritate me
when really it is the angles of light
capturing my attention, the lines
from the sun to the tilted Earth

how I notice the shift of angles
with the passing of and cycle
of seasons
the frustrating relentlessness

[RK, 5/24/21]