ten

it was summer,

when

all the small things were busy with their singing,

stinging and staying in the center of their own

centripetal spinning and

she went inside out.

told to fold herself into a silence,

she was stars burning out their own brilliance.

autumn never came,

and winter waited like a wise, old moon.

it's summer,

again.

now heat peels back the skin of secrets and

shows the living things hidden under death

and time could care less.

one fist wraps tight around an old fear, the

other expands against contraction,

to stretch into the room:

a noon of plastic helplessness and rage,

black coffee and aspirin,

day after day,

blacking out the sun, calling all things night.

willing sleep to sleep

and fire to founder.

it is time to wake.

wrap your fingers around the pin,

and pull.

she does. and her is and was are set free.

out of fragile skin, sings sharp, dark edges,

glass trembles and shivers into fine dust,

a warp of a scream singes the blind eyes.

what was hers is hers.

and these years later, this rage is ready.

from the center of bone comes a surge, a

swell, a voice reclaimed.

this is a no. this is a never.

this is the distance. this is the hard line.

and after the scorch of this hot season,

rain will fall and the earth will gather in

and listen, listen...

and, finally hear.