KitKennedy

WHEN HEAVEN IS LOW

Everything becomes a mast
at night when heaven is low
as an anklebone   palms
shackled to phantom wind
ripple

Time spun day
concave/parched
until departure/
arrival the same
I slip into my pocket
a few grains of abrasion

no pearl
no glass
no you

FATE

Two friends select stones
as if inspecting tomatoes,
peaches, plums. Reject most
returning them gently.
The chosen they hold
in their palms. Wrap each
with copper wire, slip
a small feather, blade
of grass, or scrap
of paper with a single word
journey seedbed nap
and wonder why
did these stones choose us.

QUILT

hand guides scissors
drawing a life out of pocket
keeping body warm

pray grandkids watch ants
travel the stitches   return home
bread on their backs

don’t care much for symmetry
what makes you tilt, makes you laugh
a strip of hot pink

not saying
don’t see beauty
in the simple

DETAILS BUFFER THE INCOMING STORM

One hundred twenty three steps
to/from dock. Fifteen fishing boats.
Five men congregate six days
a week.   Sip coffee, monitor
and count the fleet’s return.
She spent summers here
now full time except four months
three years ago. Reads
the postcard imploring her
to be in Paris. Scrawl makes love
to absence, to what is passed.
Tilts the card, does she think
she can topple a cathedral?
Sameness and sadness: buoys,
satiate the weary as incoming storm
saturates nineteen rooftops by morning.
Her love of map, of compass
fondness for play of shadow
and alphabet.
Doesn’t need a light to read
harbor as she has for six decades,
an “L” -- love, linger, liquefy.

RISK ASSESSMENT

Cataclysm
once filled my bones
with marrow.

I no longer worry old myths
into new clothes. Let them be
another’s truth.

I welcome holly, blackbirds
and night’s flicker of honey
reminds me where I have lived

accumulated
telephone numbers.
Each place a grab bag of detail

reflects the assortment
of houseplants heart-shaped leaves
like photographs tossed into a shoebox

faces in nameless landscape
as if time pinpoints how I got to where
I have been.

If a fierce frost
the nest of birds like me
at risk.

I am no optimist.