What the Muses Leave Behind

   “We all have interiors that want to be seen.” Fibber McGee’s Closet, you don’t want to open it too fast.  My interior is not a Fibber McGee Closet…go ahead, take your time. Peek in slowly, I miss details about my life at first glance too.  You can get lost in there, I get lost in here.  Pockets, reticulations, like a fox makes, retracing her steps so that none can follow.  Sorry grandchildren, my path might seem to lead you down a blind alley, just keep going. I’ve always loved walking in the dark, feeling my way.  My interior self sorted instead of stacked.  Think of a wall of conglomerate strata, neatly tucked into place. Think of lots of shelves, bottle lined, blue, green, brown glassed. Of secret rooms, burrows and warrens, fur lined and wormy. Think of revolving doors, a little sticky but with a push you are in. Of  labyrinths on islands for the really sordid moments, the ones that you truly want ...

This city has seven rings, bad air and a piece of my jewelry. That earring of lapis and quartz, now closer to home Than ever it was in Appalachia. Here's a city that wheels the roads like fish schools with frightening appetite. Platters of Peking Duck warn me as I devour its crispy delicious skin. It’s a city of red doors, masked faces and a piece of my incisor. Now this tongue, worried and raw, craves sweet longan fruit and milk tea. I am another door, chipped but open. This city demands guts for steaming hot pots and morning courage. My slumber has climbed aboard Coriolus currents, I wake more dream than dreamer, more breath than blood. This city expects backbone, an open wallet, and a warm coat. Turtle dragons embody the emperor. All lean into their work. Harmony, the hardest task master, reigns from the inside out. Here is a city with three feet, its silent anarchy in black leather boots. A young foot reaches for tomorrow, the old one gathe...

I’ve grown indifferent even bound in breath crouched on one leg. Here beneath me so many sturdy shoulders. Steady on (I think) find the balance in the wobble of an apical tip and never neglect the view from here.

Turbid The river is turbid today this moment feels the same Tomorrow’s forecast murky and overhead a ropy underbelly of cloud pinkens with our f bombs wears them as honor badge. One hundred percent Ever notice how rivers cut to the chase? We say inundate but it’s really a full body press. Our angry rumblings an envious companion. Envy, imitation, the highest form of flattery, I hear. I watch us roil to a slow boil. Clearing channels for “hell hath no fury” to break loose! We congregate in divine tempest. Been building for ages, like Katrina and Rita Irma and Sandy Florence Storm surge and flooding the mighty debridement And holy is the rancor that ochers the water. The rivers are ready. The oceans have held worse, have carried more. One hundred percent. Castaways bereft make new lives  if they don’t drown in the trauma and the abuse and the shame. Survivors as persons who continue to function even prosper in...

“Swearing… a bellwether—a foul-beaked canary in the coal mine—” - Emma Byron Somewhere along the Nolichucky in an Appalachian July, gathered a congress of friends: mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, a local nurse, a handyman, a waitress newly unemployed, a pizza cook - all upright, fried crisp and getting crocked. The babies were asleep, the fire bright, the banter surly. It cycled through tightfisted wages and overdrawn accounts, days choked on Trumped up stories buggering common sense, then the regrets - fermented dreams and philanders - they never could make sense of it anyway.   With sheets to the wind and stumbling judgement in sore need of restoration, the repartee slipped off the bank into the raunchy waters of Vulgaria,  where, albeit unexpectedly, along the Nolichucky in an Appalachian July, Hygiea rose from the foam, with shit under her nails.  She was sired that night by conundrum and wombed in a Dickle jar, but her remedy, in that hour of ne...

Return to teenage mind between limbic brain and prefrontal to imagine Persephone spitting dirt and cobwebs Rip Van Wrinkle stretching limber limbs first thing on your tongue let it rise up Ambient and sleep tweeter denial another drug of choice make for home again barefoot and blind the trail long cold crumbs long gone and here is your fresh start fresh as a wound and wounds love honey blood in the honey iron sweet so is a cardinal’s jubilation every resonate note an arrow straight stand straighter feet planted in a new look whipped up rainbow open network fetid breath in shadow homecoming more cobwebs to lace up a wandering detail Lilith wailed Mary wept it dissolved the accretions it shed skins so the center can fly apart   you let it like the cottonwood   see      adolescents do this daily.

BROKEN VENEER BRITTLED CRACKED     FRAUGHT LOOSE DUSTED   DUST TO DUST TO THE WIND     BLOWN TO THE WINDS DISCOMBOBULATED MY UNDOING     UNDONE DISSOLVED  APART IN THE HEART ARCHIPELAGO EVAPORATED ASUNDER IN SHREDS     WISPY THIN   AND COOLING ANNEALED  IT SHOWS ONLY JUST UNTIL QUICKENING MAKES SENSE    AND POSSIBLE ONE THREAD     COALESCED YES CONFABED CONFIGURED RECOVERED  DISCOVERED AND COBBLED BACK  GALVANIZED TIGHTENED RETUNED REVIVED REBOUND     AND PRO FOUND  NOTHING MISSING IN FACT THE SYNERGY NOTEWORTHY NEVERTHELESS IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN   IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN