Colleen

Down feathers are always with you now

Crowning your head

and slipping out your sleeves

When you think no one is looking.

You leave behind hollows

filled with the soft white things

And it is true,

I think,

that you are no longer quite one of those things that we call “human”.

Your heart has shifted

from something bloody and aortic

to a golden molten marble

and now when you walk-

you jingle.

Your wings you keep tucked away

folded in on themselves in preparation

For aviation and some great unknown

that is only hinted at on full moons.

A small child sees you.

She cannot help but mouth,

“An angel, an angel”

And you,

you only smile.

And the feathers pool

in footprints behind you.

Puffer Fish

Blowfish have got it figured out. The day made you angry? A bird shat on your car? You lost millions of dollars on a law suit? Slow down. Relax. Take a break. And puff up until you can see the world a little more clearly again.

Plus, they're fish that have beaks. What more could you ask for?

Broken Mosaic Heartfelt Wonders

There comes a great sound.

Catastrophic.

Maybe.

Of glass shattering.

Slowly

with my fingers

Carefully,

and gently,

I dance the shards

across gritty sometimes washed floors.

I dance them

until they sing for me

until they beat for me-

until I am no longer anticipating

that the pieces will prick.

will cut.

will end.

I make a new dance song

out of the beautiful pieces

of my heart

flopping,

and shattered on the kitchen floor.

These romantic notions

make me self-aware,

like a woman painting china cups

or the damsel in distress

or a fifties housewife

who only has the cat to talk to.

I see myself:

this woman with her heart

leaking

and stapled

on her sleeve.

I will chew it.

Masticate it.

And I will spit it out

at the world.

It is my sustenance.

Because this morning

I fell in love with a woman

all over the way she kissed her own lips

I heard the raw coffee grounded croon

of a stranger

I grinned at a grinning dog

And yes.

He did.

He did grin back.

And

this morning

the world graffitied itself

at my doorstep

in dog shit

in curses

in laughter

in vibrations

in the rarest flocks of the bluest jays.

I will never

ask for sinew strings

or artificial tinsel wrapping papers

to snake their way around my beatings.

Around my shattered heart strings.

Because

this morning

Odors crawled in to my nostrils

Beings - and people

attached to my retinas

And finally

After life was done

pummeling me over the head,

I stared down at the pieces:

Broken mosaic heartfelt wonders

And I exhaled.

wept.

And sighed,

"this is life".