you can tell a warrior by her eyes (a snapshot in greyscale)

she is posturing, her rage an

excuse and shaky definition, the

bottom line is dotted and it is fragile

it has the insult of good hair

it is a thieving liar, trailing

backward from the fulcrum

she is fighting with disgust on

her tongue, sweet or bitter, no one

will heed a bent archetype

in a rocking chair murmuring

“power thrives in unity” from

a mouth full of quiet wisdom,

while her fists are full

of fury and loathing

in the very center, beauty still knows

truth without her intrusion, hope

frames shadows on the wall as

gradients of pure grace, despite a

past, the future is rushing in, and

she is sick of this shit

© 10.10.2018 heather brager

evaporate.

the splinter of ice is vanishing in her palm

hands of magic, hands of stretched

alabaster skin, hands with pale fingernails

that were once painted reflection pool blue

this shard is nothing of importance, your

scent of autumn as cyclical as burnt

leaves, as barren as an empty table, as

pitiful as division you contrived, the

remnants wiped away on her soft thigh

© 9.18.2018 heather brager

life began on a morning after forty.

upon the realization that your memoir has

written itself, life will begin again

after you have taught the children to

walk and speak, and take the train to work

by themselves, after the original husband

stands posturing back somewhere beyond

your threshold, and the ashes of the arduous

lover have dissolved into the cold northern

Atlantic, you will rise an hour after dawn

on a cool morning, and stand in the

middle of a room that has carefully held

every human emotion, with a soft cat

pressing against your leg, and a

warm cup in your hands, you will finally

recognize yourself for the first time

upon the realization that you will

struggle until you no longer fight, you

will drown until you learn to swim, you

must love yourself in spite of fear

and hatred in the world, you must continue

on instead of giving up, you will suddenly

own yourself like tarnished brilliance,

the paragon on a forgotten shipwreck

© 8.24.2018 heather brager

still human.

for year after year, our pattern

is still driving with a flat

tire, somewhere south of

the metro, courage as diluted

as our clarity of the truth, and perhaps

for a moment, the clouds snap

into focus, backdrop shining sapphire,

sun spraying hope, and

with momentary breath, beauty
clings to the hood of the car, shining

a honey colored pool, though we

did not train our mind to

capture the tribute

© 7.17.2018 heather brager

less than.

the summer months are a

culmination of lines

blurred, memories become

an animal, I look to my hands to

study the lines on my face, a mirror

in several dimensions, I can see right

through each sensation

I am still longing for

imperfection, again or for the

first time, I  know the heaviness of

the air from august, we have come

nearly full circle and

still my palms know who you are

how often I wait

for the future

to catch up

so many times to start and stop.

I pause to read the hand I have

been dealt, peer into the same soul with

a different face, knowing I

have never been half. 

© 7.5.2018 heather brager

Untitled.

your hands left plum colored 

remnants. but not because you wanted 

to hurt me. we both cried about

your mother, but not because we 

hurt each other. you are so afraid, and 

you know that I could love you. you know 

I don’t understand, so please 

just remember me.

the gift.

insignificant

hours compose

a treaty in

poetry, and I find

myself wanting

your energy back

in my myth, in

the one we

press side by side

turning pages, the

perfume of cellulose

and lignin on

our fingertips,

tracing the faint

rise of what is

unwritten, the

careful overlap of

interludes, as we

close the covers

© 6.8.2018 heather brager

there are moments that time does not.

your blazing eyes at 10:43 p.m.

glancing across the kitchen table, and

her hair damp with southern

humidity and restrained hunger

your tears, Sunday morning drunk,

exposed until you fell asleep, her

hands removing loss like dust from a

tabletop; you have no idea what you lost

your mouth saying nothing, standing

at the corner of Summer and

Atlantic, on time for a southbound

train, but much too early for her comfort

your pallid cheek in lamplight, weary

with conclusions of the Yankee Inn, asleep

when you said you could not, faint scent

of lavender, and murmured invocations

  

© 6.6.2018 heather brager

Vladimir Fokanov.

sorry, not sorry.

I have lost my shit in the grocery store
a damp list of items clutched in my right fist

blue ink bleeding onto my skin, grief
pushing my face to the floor with
1000 psi, next to a stack of beefsteak tomatoes

I have posed solitary and stiff-backed in the front
row, the hue of death melting around my face, feet

aching and cold from standing six hours in the
pumps that a dead man bought me as a birthday gift

I have cowered upright on a hard courtroom
bench, teeth clenched and heart held firmly

in the hands of a judge, the faces of my
two children projected clearly on the wall

I have lent the same heart to broken men, sewn
them back together with my own shaking fingers

delivered them a glass of bourbon, and stroked
their damp cheeks, while I laid down penance

for desiring a full basket of eggs, abandoned
home for just one more year, offered bowls

of sliced ginger, turmeric, garlic, and thyme
for the affection of an indifferent lover

I have drawn the beauty of a soul with a
solitary stick of graphite, to open my
abdomen for examination

for just one more fucking chance.

so don’t you dare demand
arbitrary time, or tell me
that I need to be patient.
don’t tell me how it
works to love, or explain
to me the writing
on the wall, when you
don’t even believe in
the same language.

© 5.30.2018 heather brager

(art: Erika Kuhn)

question everything.

the first night

she traced your 

silhouette for 

three days and nights

as you breathed out

her manifestation, white

light illuminating the outline

to remind of the spaces

in between true 

focus, following

your every move,

even in dreams

they lie side by side as

slices of impermanence 

the last night your 

eyes quickly flashed 

hot, and for one second 

she peered inside a 

dark space, after gifting a 

mirror of everything,

what was left of a beating

heart, vibrations 

through fingers splayed

wide open before you, and

yet, you did not yield 

you said nothing was tossed aside,

you told her to wait, and she heard 

stop, because she is too much, too 

sensitive, never quite enough  

for now press your hands 

against her flesh

hold tight to

lend a piece of 

yourself for safe keeping,

yes, just like that, 

pour, pour yourself 

into yet another soul, but

she is made of copper, humble 

goddess, prepared to

nourish and 

swallow the fated,

holding tenderness in 

oiled palms, but she is not
carrying the talisman you seek

 © 5.21.2018 heather brager

Patricia Ariel.

are you listening?

there are forgotten stories

inscribed in words, symbols and

images scrawled across damp

walls, under decaying floors, a

history buried far beneath the

earth, steadily uncovered

in rhythmic codes revealing

time and future, queens and

their kings, records woven in

intervals boldly above their crowns

and where have you been hiding?

your mother, the goddess, ancestral 

force, father sky and his cavernous

soul, strong hands shading a gaze

across the fields, cold dark

water rumbling, backs

straight, then broken and bent

over torment, again and 

again, abandoned

they are yours

they are ours, the 

agonizing beauty, now an 

antiphony pulses in your 

very breath, celebration twined

to your cell memories, a living

history writhing within

your skin

your eyes

your own voice

there is primordial hope hovering 

over the seas in echoes of oars

and copper mettle, above the

bird songs, beyond the

lands that steal and

petrify courage, there is

harmony and cadence, lying in

wait in your open palms, throbbing 

in your feet, grasping at your

heart, pleading to escape

its prison from behind your 

teeth and tongue

 © 5.15.2018 heather brager

(Ben Hodson)

Broadway.

I may not understand why you closed the door quietly behind you that night, hesitating over your shoulder for just a second. I somehow hoped I was enough, but always knew better.

I speculated for weeks, looking for you at stoplights, drawing your beautiful shoulders and arms behind my eyelids, feeling lost for words, knowing I really did ask you to leave with my eyes.

Perhaps there were too many women without boundaries, too many women who worshiped your body, too many women who were afraid to challenge your lack of commitment, too many women who knew there was a revolving door. Too many women who didn’t have demands like I did.

I saw you this morning driving west on Broadway, your skin glowing in the sunlight against the white. I watched your lips as you looked right through me, and I smiled at the young girl staring at me as I passed, your arm across her shoulders.





© 5.3.2018 heather brager

magic and lipstick.

she finds herself 

again, seared open, 

tender enchantment  

standing solitary 

in the corner 

she finds her 

skin is still soft

hair still falls carefully 

over shoulders and 

arms angled 

gentle like hooks 

for capture, 

weapons to love

with burning 

anticipation

that can only 

disqualify her

she finds herself 

again and again

hands empty, blue 

wide open, putting 

lipstick back on, and

that bra, those boots,

the mask that will be 

thrown aside next 

week, or next year

again, uncovered 

and she feels 

the magic before 

it enters the room, 

after it has faded 
away, again and again

disbelief turned to

emptiness, possibility 

left smoldering

then gone tepid,

the lost and the

found, and lost again

© 4.7.2018 heather brager

valediction.

daylight slips across the smudged

walls of an empty room, when you find

yourself twisted in an echo, afraid of north and

dragging south, when your entire life is

at your feet, two pieces of stone abandoned

under her pillows, when another year

presses your skin with fierce fingertips, her magic

will fall softly parallel to another, when you

tell yourself you are a solitary being,

she will still send you pale light with

hints of sandalwood and lavender

© 3.19.2018 heather brager

the healer.

please lean in

bend down gently my

beautiful apparition, our

adverse complements

lurk deep within a

story that neither

can amend

leave it there, or give

it back, but let me in

now I am crawling through

the damp lines, licking your

voice as I slide down

your throat, I am  

curling around

your solitary heart

© 3.6.2018 heather brager

falling, short.

too many midnights
recalculating the
balance of fear
over devotion,
totaling fragmented
panic minus
affection, the delta of
my heart in
your hands

© 2.14.2018 heather brager

Chiara Bautista.

contemplation with a ghost.

did you try not to flicker, an apparition coasting with his

hand pressed over hers, morning sun reflecting

off the Zakim bridge and she, wondering if you

were still hovering on the outside, peering in at strangers

night after night she bent beside you, a lamp

quietly illuminating a corner of the room, she

would watch your mouth, wondering if those words

were for her, or someone you had lost years before

she handed you the key without pretense, though

abuse is a vigilant perpetrator, and how could she

ever take back your childhood, how could she

ever wring out the darkness that lay within your bones

who do you miss when you look in the mirror, beautiful

man she loves still, broken fragments of a man once loved,

the remnants of something forgiven, or something

abandoned at the curb where you left her that night

© 2.5.2018 heather brager

Antony Micallef .

bend like a willow.

with an echo in the chamber

let go of loss, its empty space is not

a foundation, the notches carved

across your breastbone are not

the only way to hold space

dispel the value you have

tied to his verses, his mouth will tell

tales, memories will twist knots

around your wrists, the spaces between

will creak and moan with each exhale

stop leaving breadcrumbs

let him find his own way, tracing back

from north to south, you were not his

woman standing in the doorway, as the

moon dove deep inside the mirror

© 1.22.2018 heather brager

Zdzisław Beksiński

breathing flora.

in a dream I 

planted a lily 

at the bottom of 

the sea, with pale 

cupped hands, I gently 

placed her roots 

beneath the 

shifting sand, dark 

water churned against

my skin under light 

refracting from 

above, and I awoke 

to drowning 

before it had a 

chance to bloom

© 1.6.2018 heather brager