2:54 a.m. reconciliation

all of these years
we smoldered and blazed
the well constructed fires
west and east, poetry
for food and misery,
liquor for blankets
in truckstop hotels
sleeping closer than skin
I was just in the other room
baking you a cake

you forced your way
through my bones,
my bending soul
dangling keys and truth
while we reconciled the
many layers of our lives,
walked the cemeteries and
drove the empty highways
always finding our way back
to the same sad song

when I am scared that
you won't recognize me
I curl you deep within
the cocoon of my ribcage
sensing a subtle writhing, I
comfort you with my breath,
you are a found child and
storm on the horizon
I breathe you back to sleep


© 3.29.2016 heather brager

halfeti rose.

nowhere near providence, she has found him again 

slumped forward, a deconstructed flower

in his closed fists, invisible treasures

an eternity of skies written on his arm

silent bewilderment in his eyes, almost

like the afternoon they met

the broken mantle clock 

futures of observant children
the gift of a self portrait

lying on a kitchen table, now framed in the dark

how his hands 

once felt on her skin

she watches her own fingers trace his spine

witnesses a foreign voice recite 

a prayer in a whisper

it must have kept her alive when he left

something kept her alive 

years compressed into a hand tracing a spine

clarity drowns and resurfaces

love is not an emotion, but meager sustenance 

she turns her face to the ocean, pulling steadily on

the horizon, wave upon wave crashing down

an eternity of skies

an eternity of skies

© 3.13.2016 heather brager

the persistence of memory.

she refuses to end sentences with terror

though images of vacant desert landscapes

force the last breath of air from her lungs

seconds are melting incomprehensible

a soft voice answering and consoling

though she is holding hostage a velvet rage

she watches a woman dousing wreckage with the sea

a bare branch and timepiece on a bedside table

drown by rebirth and the flocks are coming

© 3.3.2016 heather brager

mosaic.

I wake slowly to Chet Baker, the

sullen notes sliding against the walls

through the emptiness of rooms,

sweeping past my cheek at daybreak

I have written these poems,

hundreds of times

reliving our demise and rebirth

another drawing, ouroboros

there is your left eye, my hair

in sunlight, the scar

on your wrist, your lips

even when you slept next to me

you drove east, dragging

my heart behind your car, the

Bridgers in your rear view mirror,

deceit and worship swimming

in your mouth like eels

crossing Lake Street I glance to the sky

through branches, a pair of ravens

I want them to tell me why, my feet

in rhythm on the snow and ice

restructuring the shards you left me

© 2.19.2016 heather brager

deluge.

in the scarlet moment of drowning

when I inhale, gasp, inhale

exhale, repeat

in the matter of what seems a second

you are unaware of your cold fingers

the dull ache, the firm grasp, the

loss tangled within my hair

clutching my face and neck

your fingers no longer entwined

in my empty hands

peering down at my body

a pale shadow drifting through dusk

I doubt our existence and

beauty, tranquil limbs

a gentle heap of weightless bones

paralysis, the immeasurable silence

before surfacing will save me

© 2.18.2016 heather brager

february.

through smudged windows, looking northward

over damp landscapes swathed in nightfall

the eye of the mind knows the heart, and

she knows you from another time, a

recollection beneath chasms of flame

ardor pulled tight to your chest, the brazen words

parting quietly with lilies in the morning mist, a

wandering grief veiled behind your eyes

© 2.4.2016 heather brager

algorithm.

in the strangling moments before waking 

I have been hunted by the shadows

whispering beside the bed

premonitions borrowed 

until my eyes adjusted to the light

with a pencil I have drawn pain

in the eyes of others

she who could see through you 

while I erased the darkness

defining our contrast

I have stared down loneliness 

peering out from the corners 

I have stood close beside you 

smothered and alone 

I have walked a path

tracing the terrible ascent 

from beneath the foundation 

I have retraced our steps,

finding a way back to sunlight

before waking to a blackened ceiling 

why could you not hear me

over the whispers of shadows

you writhed in the moments before waking

my warmth was out of reach 

while you were hiding from the sun

© 1.24.2016 heather brager