The End of the Year.

the shape of things.

in the early part of the dawn

this year, or some year to come

as her eyes trace light crawling

across a bedroom ceiling,

she can almost recall being

someone else

she can see a shadow

from a lamp on a kitchen table

in a yellow house on a tree covered hill

drawing the shape of a bird on a paneled door

a splotch of paint on a whitewashed porch

in the form of a shadowy man

who will sneak in through the darkness

and stretch across a little boy’s face and arms

she can hear echoes of dreams

drawing timelines of moments

that will arrive some January, or June

she can feel the lonely ache

of a woman on a corner bench

as she drives past in traffic

in the early part of the dawn

she watches patterns

sneak across a bedroom ceiling

while they try to elude her

and she can almost recall being

someone else

© december 19.2011 heather brager

an omen.

we are a pendulum, forward and backward

belief and disbelief, knowing

the sun always rises

then sets in the west

my eyes are diverted to the sky

the silhouette of a large bird,

the pitch of his calls remind me

my heart thinks in symbolism

and my mind assumes

he is in search of carrion

I blink and the Big Sky

swallows me whole

a lost northern girl, consumed

by the firmament

quietly, I am smothered

in the belly of the tundra

and your tail lights compete

with the rising sun

© december 2011 heather brager

direction and perspective.

I stand with my face to the south

there is no sound outside my mind

running away in commentary and

despite wanting to belong

multicolored diagrams flash

vicariously on digital screens

the view is seldom clarity and

I am a rose colored spectacle

to my left there is nothing new

one more anecdotal plan in

a stack of rickety configurations

I often lean on tenuous framework

I wait for cracks to give way to light

time is a sodden beast heaving a burden

always chasing its own end

I wonder if I have always been weary

© november 2011 heather brager

apertures.

if you remember that day,

the characters and unwritten script

the end of august in rapidly spliced frames

holding keys in my mouth

pulling strands from my neck and

wrapping my hair in the melting sunlight

my eyes burned from mincing garlic and

you smelled like vanilla and leather

© november 2011 heather brager

belonging.

life had woven this being

almost mortal, her body

notched sticks and parchment

arthritic from digging in the dirt

she hung, dripping garments to dry

tired appendages reaching

upward her rigid hands

were lost maps of patience

*

a lonesome girl in the woods,

she knew each path to take

deciphering the language of birds

they swooped down to greet her

the messages of ancient trees

they bowed, murmuring wisdom

she dreamed as a gentle pixie

who frolicked beneath the ferns

© november 2011 heather brager

shadows of ourselves.

the light from the other room extends

illumination, an obscure shape

the contour of a wing, a bending bough

the idea of contentment, a glass of milk

my psychosis, long abandoned

there, the abstract is familiar

in the warmth, your arms when we sleep

ignoring all inventory of conduct

responsibility is dragging behind, like a hungry fiend

the forgotten shadows

will hunt us down

taunting us, whispering their condolences

© november 2011 heather brager

forgetting.

you cannot recall seeing over the wall,

nor have you ever been the answer

a crushed segment in a collective quandary

slouching into self deprecating defenses

warily worn like semiprecious stones

dulled by the wind and perpetual seasons

the cyclical flurries of mitigation are

perched near your jaw, positioning for flight

*

in the end you will succumb, forgetting

the opened window and the sky

reduced to paroxysm, you will postulate

blocking both the entrance and the exit

panicking, you hope the door is left unlocked

though you wear the key against your chest

© october 2011 heather brager

the scintillant.

the voices always change

in the dim light after sunset

from that of sweets coated in silica,

words slide off of a sharpened tongue

then echoes of gears grinding,

seizing air between the teeth

*

she was found there once, crushed

velvet and delicate porcelain debris

shards sinking through melting ice

of judgments bent to compulsion

now, carefully fading to the back

silent tinctures in the blankets

dreaming of jewels and carved stones

waiting for the skies to fill with light

© september 2011 heather brager

make believe.

she had ventured a lifetime ago

a world defined by blanketed mystery

absent words that spoke volumes

stories between lines left unfastened

the air was chilled and her steps muffled

then she was left to find a way home

she had visited each of the boundaries

peering over precipices with wide eyes

she had slipped beneath the surface

water pulled her to dark and silent depths

fictitious memories had filtered time

then she awakened and found herself alone

© september 2011 heather brager