bodies in winter pt II

Follow me around fields,

red eared and aimless,
winter to my heart is near
and yet it's nearly spring time still
Come, lets find the coldest part of night

with the tops of our fingers, buried in woolen mittens
palms sweating, the yarn to scratch at your skin

I will press my hands upon your cheeks, praying
my hands, quick silver, knitting never ending
stripes to wrap my body in

Come, we'll cry holy water

hard enough to cut with blades

to remind me of how we fall in love every winter

because there's been no wind wrapped snow to carry us across

the ground, it is too green to be February

Centralia from Quality Co. on Vimeo. Song by Holiday Rambler Images by the lovely Mina Sewell Mancuso

bodies in winter

Naked from the waist up, with limbs outstretched and trembling, the trees look to the holy expansion of sky - grey and always moving. In the fall, the wind visited each of them. With a whisper, he asked for their leaves and slid his never ending arms around them.

Some dropped their covering boldly, opening wide to his inspection and let go so that their fronds rocked slowly to their feet. Others pulled their arms close to their bodies and when the wind tore them open, it scattered their foliage across the street leaving them whipped and sore.

Now he moves right through them, howling at their bodies while rising up to caress and coax the clouds to move south. The trees wait in silence for the modesty of snow.

from the drunken pages of a little green notebook

How foolish -
to be
coffee stained tiger striped
fading white white lines against skin
red

with the flush of blood to the surface
the flush must remind me of sex
or maybe it is the knowledge of the body
that stops me on the street
face flooded

Wine stained,

dress splashed

red

the mosquito I crushed against your shoulder

leaving a wide dark mark on the green of your sleeve

a strangers blood against your skin

intimate

tiny twisted body ruin in the grass

you hold me up

stained red

you hold me up

intimate

us

two soft lines that twist and

unravel like the long broken limbs of an insect

i dream of the colour of our blood underneath our skin

I wake up

and flow

there is a pull in the arms
taffy twist long and lean
a stretch in the sinew
Windworn and waiting
I am heavy with dirt
I am heavy with waiting
when alone I spend my nights listening to ghosts

I hear the coast is lovely this time of year
with the air moving off the water
dragging the smell of the deep deep deep
Yet when I arrive
my hands get buried in the sand of your hair
and your limbs
taffy twist long and lean
wrap around and keep me above the blue ripple
of your bed sheets
the back of your neck does, however, carry the scent of the deep deep deep
and with my head swimming
i anchor to the mattress
hand to hand, still dreaming of ships.

Ebb

Last night I marveled at your body,
after your words had washed away with the rain of sleep
and your breathing slowed and steadied
I placed my face against your neck and felt your pulse through your skin.
How strong your heart is!
In the dark I traced the green chain of your veins - softly as not to stir you.
They sing of your system!
your arms, locked tight around my body, encouraged my oceanic survey
and when I finally followed you into those murky waters, I dreamed.

I dreamt of wide oceans and you, a little ship.
I hovered just below the water's surface
happily tethered to your hand
waiting for the tide
to pull us home.

When you wake
And I have pulled away in sleep to touch my forehead to the wall
Pull me back

Here,

place your ear against my heart,

press your cheek to my skin

Hear

the current as the rivers of my body rush to meet you.

end of march

stumbling through the chill to reach you, finding you warm and sockless near the end of March.
I am tired of winter but grasping hold of it with nails chewed short. I am writing terrible songs to scare off spring. Making hideous faces at the grass peering through the melting snow, curious to see me so wholly unwelcoming. I am whining and hanging back, pulling at winters long cold arms. It stops for a moment before turning it's flurries on me, opening wide it's fearsome mouth, endless black tongue dangling.
It is as ugly as I am, wrapped up in white coats with white fur

with the snow gone I wait for your wolves to find me.