the real question.

who is she
if not
your keeper
a shell that you carefully
prepare each day
protecting you
from the elements
you wrap her
in undergarments
dresses, coats, socks and shoes
you offer food to pad her
from the unavoidable
guide her
down hallways
and through
doorways
through weeks
months
years

to your
inevitable end


© 10.29.12 heather brager

it doesn't add up.

are you even here, or just
a phantom of this life

merging in and out
of mundane weeks

leaving and arriving with the
same acerbic vigor

you are dragging figures,
pounding on locked doors

crushing a crumpled dollar bill
in your cold, bruised fist


© 10.23.12 heather brager

10.22.12

you open your eyes  at 4:19 a.m. and despite your desperate blinks,

the ceiling is covered in shadows, the kind that watch you while you sleep.

with your mind, you command them to leave you the fuck alone

but they just flicker and shift, flicker and shift …  flicker and shift.

you drag your ass out of bed to find the windshield a half inch thick with frost

not delicate etchings, but a coating of super glue ice that won’t scrape off

even after twelve minutes of full blast defrost, you are still shivering on the side street

you remind yourself to buy some gloves the next time you get paid, but you will forget

© 10.22.12 heather brager

mid-october.

it spoke to me
as if I was that lost little girl
her ear pressed against the wind
standing alone and lithe
on a wheat colored hillside
this time, facing south
with a promise of change
murmuring over her like
thousands of blackbirds
bending the air,
dipping to reach her
to touch her face
beneath last season’s corn


© 10.9.12 heather brager

outlier.

an entity
the categories
constructed of neurons
sixty chemical elements
the human form of
flesh and bone
cartilage and fluids

what they hope
with the astonishing
intellect comprised
of intricate
isometric equations
in carefully measured
formulas

among them all
she remains
the synonym of
protector, the
reckless bard
a strumpet, girl


© 10.9.12 heather brager