My chest is full of ocean,
I suspect —

This is where the salt settles —
This is where the sky reaches lower
like the arms of a mother
steadying a toddling child —
This is where the sun mixes its oils
and where the moon is born anew each night —
This is where the waves
come to crack open —
Lapping, battering, licking —
Tirelessly obeying the storm
and the look in its eye
when it wakes

My chest is full of ocean
Or so I’m told —

This is where the driftwood
gnarls itself like arthritic bones
beneath the gull’s sneering laugh
Always, always —
This is where the ones who ache
go to empty their lungs,
To put one foot over the edge of the earth
and see if whatever’s out there
will take them in —

My chest is full of ocean,
I am sure now —

This is where the sea glass
comes to soften
and the turtles, to lay their eggs —
This is where the world
can’t choose just one color
so it paints itself again every morning
and rinses the brushes at night
in the tide pools left behind —
Where seaweed makes its home
and foghorns bellow
and everything that breaks
only becomes something new

This is the place where the day
celebrates both ends

4.26.16 tm

It is okay
if all you want from your Friday evening
is to feel the way the March breeze
sends your hair across your face

It is okay
if the windchimes ask to be your lover
and if no one else is fitting in that space;
It is okay to let them

It is okay
if front porch shadows
and sitting as the chill
works its way into the day
are your only plans tonight

It is okay
to think slowly, to breathe slowly,
to loosen your grasp
on the world others insist on living in
and slip beneath for awhile

It is okay
to leave this earth behind
and it is more than okay
not to know when you’ll return

3.25.16 tm

You and I
were that brief pinch of time
on either end of a clear day
where the moon and the sun
share a path in the sky,
brushing hands for a moment
as they rush in opposite directions

Still, what a beautiful flash of light –

However short,
however blinding

2.20.16 tm

Lay me out in the sun
I haven’t been kissed for awhile
And her rays have always
Had a butterscotch taste

Place me under the rain
I haven’t been touched for awhile
And her drops are
Fingers stroking my face

Tuck me into the stars
I haven’t been held for awhile
And their dancing light
Is a fiery embrace

Fix me up with moon
I haven’t sung for awhile
And I don’t want these words
To go to waste

10.30.15 tm

She plastered the windows
with ink-stained paper
because the light was too harsh
for her fragile new layer of skin

She placed a dried flower
on every part of her that hurt
and prayed they’d bring
each other back to life

And when the sun fell to its knees
beyond that inevitable horizon,
and the moon showed up,
dressed to impress
in its best white lace,

She shattered every window pane,
let the night fall in,
and howled like the wolf
she was

10.8.15 tm