cottonorclouds's profile

Joan and Philip You look me over as if you have never seen me. I am dressed in sackcloth, tied to the pole. I am St. Joan of Arc, my bones burning me from the inside. You are the inquisitor; you weigh the verdict in your hands and pick at your fingernails. Or perhaps you are St. Philip Neri with the heart too large even ribs fall in the byways. We will stand next to each other in the Hallelujah Chorus— my soprano to your baritone. You floated into heaven, I burned to the ground; they gathered...

I have loved faces I will not see again I have loved faces I will not see again – faces of sand and earth, faces steeped on mountain tops, faces lilting on ocean bottom, faces resting at the mouths of streams. I have loved faces I will not see again, mirrored in my empty palms. I have loved faces I cannot reach falling away between my fingertips: faces stirred by idle winds and the sad shifts of the tide. I have loved faces I will not see again. Though I cannot remember them each – restricted...

Dusk Sun Give me but a moment to set aside these books (the authors, all dead), and we shall go out into this night strapped together beneath an umbrella. Pennsylvania hums to the drone of an evening wind. But we shall listen to the rain and watch these skittering shadows find solace in an alley’s embrace. Give me but a moment and we shall go— we’ll watch March rise up on weary bones and ravage the streets around us. We shall walk and worry about the mutterings of a street lamp and the call o...

Sailor’s Song You and I are but the wind’s sigh. The break of the ocean against this beach is your lips murmur in the night. You have opened my throat to feel the soft pattering of infants and see the shine of a distant moon, but you have not seen the evergreen trees trembling beneath my collarbone or the waterfall spilling from my knees. You have not seen the silent nuns that pass along the ridges of my spine or the hungry crows lined round my heart. You listen to my breathing in this lightl...

Saints Diane is seated at the table – a large, round piece with a bare, dark top. She is seated, legs crossed, torso forward, elbows on the table, shuffling cards between her hands. She has beautiful hands – small and thin. Each slim finger has a ring. There are silver ones that catch the poor light that filters down from the above light and twinkle with a hidden preciousness. There are colorful ones, little beaded things that twirl around her fingers like tiny ballerinas making their first t...