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