laughter is peeling off the wallpaper ~
hold my hand across these snowy miles ~
picking lemon peels off the floor of my
survival ~ kissing lips that are all salt and
sugar ~ tick tock time, hour glass sand ~
we are beach bound and bouncing off
the clouds ~ your hand at the small of my
back and I try to breathe, in then out ~

"Wait until spring . . . "

he sends me pennies in paper envelopes,
skipping across the blue sky days ~
he glues them, tails down onto
green glass buttons ~ he tells me I can
wear my yellow slip or not because he doesn't
really mind, one way or the other ~

I am busy in the orchard, the medicine
pulses through my veins, I am almost
bloodless but that will change with the
warming of the days, I know now to never
kiss a vampire on the neck ~ that is more
knowledge than I had before so that is
something, right?   I still shine inside my
mind, it takes more than some broken teeth
to destroy my lemonade life ~

I am waking up with the truth
of the trees ~ I am me, inside of me, anyone else
who comes inside of me is a guest, and they are to
honor me and mine ~ and I will know how to offer
them the same on silver platter nights ~ but it will
wait, in the cocoon stillness, until the days strike
a balance between the black and the white ~

wait, wait ~ lips poised over lips ~ I will show
you why the sun flares towards the wax and the
wane of the moon ~ send me your morning word
and I will crochet you a small pocket poem ~ it
will keep you warm on cold nights, it will pour
sweetness into your dreams ~ lay it on the floor
and it will fill your room with my voice ~
tonight the moon will hang it all in the balance,
inspiring us toward the coming vision dream,
when winter's ghost wraps around the bones of spring.