__________
Tangible Sorcery
Hands at my feet
I pull the bones rough
to loosen the roots, work
out what happens
versus what gets
told, the great-grandad
rage made mash
in the chemical wash
of mood and time.
Reveal the story
I was raised to erase.
Every shadow woman
waits in my fascia, ancient
lore of men and crime. One toe
makes my hip cramp, each heel
a tiny beaten muscle of thoughts
I was raised to heal. I raise
my son to see through me, learn
our anxiety earlier. Still, rootbound
in dirt gone dust, our injuries
ghost up from wrongs done down
our line. Shadow stitches dropped
and bleached, stained but holding.
Seizing lower back. View of men
and grime. Jade is dull and never
dies. I grip the trunk to roll
the root ball free, coat my sweat
in sandy soil. Wear our silence
in my hip – sacrum of trying to
vanish – mend, tend, mend,
tend, mend and grime, I strain
a line of proud pain tolerance, break
a line of being fine.
________________
When your mind gets dark
think of the symmetries of plants.
Their dead stems, their growth.
Even as the ghosts
slip out of their bottles.
Spill with the milk.
Practice your cracked heart.
Not escape.
Start again.
This morning’s Post asks,
“What Will We Sacrifice?”
Look straight ahead.
Look now.
Red scars
on the trunk
of the succulent.
The window sills
that crumble
under cleaning.
Mildew stains
and years of paint.
Creep inside your
well-being. Your
housework. Breathe
each year that dapples the glass.
Close your eye,
the broken egg.
The familial silence
slips before you name it.
Don’t put your
finger on it.
__________
Ease in Darkness
I slide a window open to time my mind
to the pace of the rain.
Dust moves like my mood of a day
or a whole year of cleaning.
Momentary far-off radio.
Airplane. Dog sigh.
Scrape and throb
of the wound in my mouth.
Belly churns with liquid
and pudding and pills.
Sometimes I forget love made my body.
Forget I could sing.
We coalesce for a time and use ourselves up.
What if there is no waste?
The voice in my head says relax, you lazy
beast. It’s all too much.
I am not the voice in my head
saying too much, too little.
________
Peace Chafes
Even delighted — even as each sip sparkles at the rim of my cup — percusses the now, the now the sea, the cupful, the swimmer, stars, and fish of wave of torso — was I dipped in the sea — did it wash up in me —each facet reflects it — everything I conjure I once saw in the water.
Before a story can leave my body something draws it back in — I refuse to engage with anything that drains me — I sign it as a contract but it's just a text pinging at my future — rebel or cower — the dumb delicious of doing wrong, the dumb delicious of deadening.
Inner landscape time is different — this whole place is phantom-filled, but doggedly regenerates — our bodies move on earth as symptoms — the part of my head that can’t remember is the sad part — wind batters our tilted-forward foreheads — my sisters mourn their losses — darkness rides my breath, doesn’t settle.
__________________
Keep Waking Up in Your Body
Raw as a wire — something wild set free in a house — maybe a little healing or a lot of sleep — maybe the right story at the right time — you can be whoever you’re being.
So watered so fed
So rested so mute
What I couldn’t put my hands on — a feeling I was losing even as I had it. I fumble for its stand-ins — the environs of my opening, furniture, moves of a moment.
When the storm sends me home
I remember my measure.
Count on a history that led up to now, and the belonging that comes with it - the fuckery that keeps me mad, alive, the witches’ choir, the family money health. The light on leaves or water, the thirst that comes with growing. I make a thousand silent vows but do I need to?
What I stalk I stalk
instead of sleep
_______________________________________________________________________
Megan Breiseth is the author of the chapbook Zia (Mrs. Maybe Press) and the co-author of the chapbook the longer you stay here (Featherboard). Her poems can be found in Parentheses, Rise Up Review, sPARKLE and bLINK, antiphony, LADige, Word for/Word, Seneca Review, and Action, Spectacle. She lives with her wife and son beside two majestic redwoods in San Leandro, California.