edit, ad nauseam.

 

oh lover, please

domesticate this lonely

little ego

she’s been waiting

for your hands and

your fingers

to become

tangled in her hair

she’s been waiting

up late into

each night, aching

for your

admiration

your shimmering,

silver tongued

praise

please, take this

scantily clad poem

in all of its

vulnerable nakedness

slide it slowly across

your tongue

licking

every

last

word away

oh, sweet amylase,

this malaise

reduces her to

a complex technical

process

© 6.5.2017 heather brager

Julia Randall. 

may.

a dark branch, a cup

perhaps it was mislaid 

with everything else, a 

starving nomad’s gamble 

for adjacency, a tender

metaphor for wandering

down pleasant street

© 5.18.2017 heather brager

presence, or pretense.

it is long before dawn, she is naked

and he is fully clothed, this

is the way they often present, distant

mirrors and white space, soft

as her inner arms and belly,

vacant rooms, a payment with words

here and there, please take this offering

accept this tenderness, on mute

it presents as contradiction, that

surreal and abstract, or organic

art cannot physically harm them, that

art cannot leave them financially

destitute after dying, or abandon them

on a corner with a plum colored

cheekbone, and a scarlet

right hand of knuckles

it is beauty that draws them both

possibility in each image, patterns

spread across her thighs, in black and white

forgiving tongues, and burdens lost in

connection, and his dark eyes

juxtaposed against the white

space, a backdrop of violent landscapes

leaning patiently against the wall 

© 5.4.2017 heather brager

acceptance is a blank page.

the loose ends you leave behind and

how you disappear show the ones

who love you everything they will ever need to know

the first stage of grief leaves you standing in the grocery store a

forgotten child, the face of loneliness wielding a knife

next to local produce and a bent woman

who shouts “dear, are you okay” as you crumple to your knees

staring blankly at the empty space

you relive the fear in your stories as a reminder that you can,

to justify what your clever mind will not permit you to release

terror follows you across the parking lot to your car

anger clings like a wet dress tripping you up

exposing the truth, spinning the truth

helpless as a spider circling in a bathroom drain

loss is drowning at the bottom of a bottle

re-reading words written by the perfect lover

who never could have existed, but in your mind

pain is a silhouette with his back to the

wind, looking over dark water in a soundless loop

though you are not permitted to see his face

because he is always turning away

the fifth stage of grief slides over you silently as

morning splays across the cat at the foot of the bed, sliding

up the wall and over dust that covers a smiling face in graphite

maybe you remember being content then,

but those eyes are no longer yours

© 4.25.2017 heather brager

the ocean starts at the shoreline.

this is you, you seek solace in raw demise

you accost by adjective and verb

burying it under allegations

of beasts for slaughter, fish gasping at the shore

discarded and digging in the dirt for forty

some years for the source

detonation at the helm

wanting, lurking, mining for the simple hope 

to catch a fish

this is you, but hope emerged carrying freshly cut flowers,

sweets, poetry and your blame like ancient talismans

vibrant as butterflies on the cover

pleading to carry you out of the picture,

if only you would release the dead weight

but why fly, when you could sink or swim

this is still you, inside of twenty years or more

bowing to a shrine of solitude that grips and holds

you back from beauty so exquisite

it would kill you the moment you heard the song, a song

vibrating from its tender soul

but who are you, really?

are you hidden within the heart she sent

one of two birds, not beautiful enough to soften

hatred so sharp your hands were crimson

before you even attempted to touch her skin,

because artists love contrast, though

you never pressed your lips to the water stain

in a promise, before you commenced digging

this is you, but fear was not your fault

and hope is a solemn beast for

you are the fisherman, and the fish

casting, gutting, drown by air

and now it is all you have, crimson

abandoned at the shoreline

everything at once, then nothing at all

© 4.20.2017 heather brager

Hans Kanters.

tidal.

she opened

her eyes as

the shoreline gasped

outward beneath

her naked feet

frigid pools

swallowed hard as

she stood alone

hunting past

the sight line

a lone gull wailed 

and wind stung

as she stood 

down an airless 

insignificance

© 4.18.2017 heather brager

cambiata.

when it has been a hard year, indelible

patterns wear down the floorboards

daylight presses an imprint against
the film on neglected window panes

limbs remain where limbs must lie in

wilted angles, measured in sepia

when alone is a place to dwell, bitter as a

worn chair in the middle of the room

tolerantly pending the comrade of

umber, who bears a smooth glass of medicine

perhaps time has unveiled a hushed

melody of imminent contentment, watchfully 
tending to deserted spaces with conciliation

leading all of the voices in conversation

until the heart skips dissonance

© 4.15.2017 heather brager