Creative Work

The explosion blows glass across me,
shards spatter and sparkle beneath an out-of-place sun.
The next day, clattering out of the station,
the train carries me north as we step aboard in secret.

Like crows, black thoughts rush me,
pecking at my red brain still trying to reason.
They screech at scarecrows, poke through wet sticks,
dive like thieves inside my head.

The train, faster than the crows,
pushes me toward cold places
where trees shed and shiver in bare skin.
Mudsnow melts beneath traffic
near a windcold riverbank that shudders.

Leaves and snow and ice crunch beneath me.
The air smells different from the hot land of the explosion.
Like a vermilion shawl, red berries cover a wall,
And rusted leaves scatter like blood across frost.

The leafless park follows the river walkway,
Cold water slows toward hibernation.
There are no crows here.
Ice air glints in my eyes.

The river swerves sharply away,
but the path straightens into a thickening forest ahead.
Like whispers, my feet move quietly
through the blood leaves and wet twigs.

I saw the lights first,
bouncing off other houses
off the black sky.

I saw shadows running in the street,
like ravens in coats –
darting and shouting.

Dark sirens,
Three more ravens in the yard.
Cars lined up.

The next day,
walking through the melted house,
objects curled in unique death cries,
folding into new forms.

Others were simply gone:
the needlepoint chair my mother made,
the footstool –
somewhere beneath the ash floor.

A paint-by-number,
almost finished,
stood untouched on the table.

China behind glass,
still sparkling.

Torn curtains hung like shrouds
over smoke windows.

We moved through the charcoal cave
like bats along a blackened wall,

blind transients
searching the rubble
For ebon treasure,

For bone memories.

Night of the first moon
I lay my rug upon the
hearth and wait for
your homecoming.

Cold into morning –
in quiet space –
Orion falls, a million stars,
scattered at my laughing feet.

Free on a wild pony
over flat deserts
long braids,
cornmeal,
the sungod and you
in dry heat.

Bloodied warrior,
two hundred winters gone,
I cannot see your face –
your song mumbles
in my mind like thunder.

Many centuries passed
frozen
between us in the glacier

I cannot remember why.

Couched under the tallest oak, staring, the
black woman whispers “changes are coming,
changes are coming.” She lifts her arms to
landmarks – the wind through thorn trees,
the dead streambed, rocks piled above the
cliff. I follow her into the cave. Here with
faces in open rooms, the hawkwheels in the sky,
coyotes eating stop to listen, and the star
falls backward into boulders, slips through
cracks in the rock floor. I run to the wash and
dig sand until water comes.

I heard his horse-white scream from my bedroom
and ran to him.
In the corral. On his side – down -
His appaloosa body bloated and wrong,
neck twisted back wildly,
eyeing me, kicking the chain fence, he died –
one leg sticking through the wire,
lying still like bleached frost.

One hundred white envelopes
Spread across the desk
pale messengers
of the unspeakable.

Requesting your presence.

One hundred white envelopes
lined like gravestones
before me.