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Echo of Lost Things A. B.
KIRSTEN
bad wolf publishing New Haven, Connecticut Text copyright Š 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012 by Amy Beth Kirsten All rights reserved. No use without permission from author.
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Starfall for B.
How can so many things falling be silent? It would be a cacophony of frenzied winging if it weren’t for the silence falling unbound by gravity fall and fall and fall rising as they fall – a secret breath that covers me star by star in a foot of white no prints not a track not a road a promise of paths to come. You are infinite like this – an eternal blanket of six-pointed stars. Nothing secret separates us in the frenzied silence let the winging world fall and rise and fall let it slide its starry limbs to make angel shapes – Only we are here appreciating in silence.
Echo of Lost Things When you shadow your face to keep me from seeing too many details, it is your (impossible but) deeply kind desire to keep me from that cavern of regret and the clanking echo of lost things that live there. Don’t you know? I am not afraid of your dark.
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Window Seat We’ve been here for a long time, in this place (in our places). Our footing seemed so sure, our arms out for balance. How funny to find that we were walking on water in its gaseous state, our feet catching an imaginary rock here and there. From this side it looks like frozen cotton, or a blanket of warm froth – untouchable. It makes me wonder what is wrong with this pane of glass (my breath makes a fog and I draw: ? ). When I think of you thinking of mountains, the steel machine you’re in making a mist of what was once the whole world, I hope you have a window seat, that the view is clear, and that you are seeing what I am.
Eraser almost invisible a word that no longer matters covered with pink lint – burning rubber blow away the pieces, unaware so easily vaporized only a faint impression remains I let this happen. Yes, I know why. Tomorrow, when I reappear, our delicate balance of author and alphabet will be upset, (Don’t you love me anymore?) and I’ll start erasing myself all over again – a misspelled word, revealing something unintended – to keep from hurting you.
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Lost Coffee You were my age then, no, nine years younger. The goal? To relieve the vastness of the long-sticking summer, the watched clock. Then again, there was probably no actual goal, just killing time – hunting for leprechaun dust; singing Kookaburra with sore throats; eating sprinkle sandwiches at a random hour; dancing sharp hip to cheek to the Stones. One day you said: let’s make iced coffee – it sounded so exotic; no other mothers had ever suggested such a thing. After a moment of protest, twisting, I watched the milky brown liquid coat the floating cubes, then, your moans of delight. I gave in – again, spinning. Seven hundred miles, and thirty years away in Baltimore (a 49 degree average that December), ice fingers gripping the travel mug (rattling like forgotten bells), no one could convince me to drink my coffee hot.
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The Rescuer we’ve been gone for two weeks up the stairs now (and away from a paradise that was sticky sweet) this hits me heavy as luggage: I completely forgot to have someone water the plants how humble and whipped they look uncertain as a sudden stop, a bubble blown through a tiny plastic wand (there is always the question of how long it will last before exhaling its end) I water them furiously, repot them, find some old fertilizer under the sink (they receive it shamelessly) all the while I’m thinking: am I trying to save them, or us?