the poetry of me

the poetry of me can be found in split-ends of hair; in cracked cuticles & knuckles 

chapped against white waves of winter; dripping inside rivulets of rainwater on a car’s fogged 

windshield & cold breath collected in a cloud; beneath a streetlight’s fuzzy

apricot orange glow & in snowflakes melted on the wet, fleshy 

pink meat of a tongue. i’ve folded memories into myself as water rushes over flat 

stones in riverbeds—my father’s sickly quiet tears morning he left us & his smile 

when i walked off a groaning airplane in spokane to bring him home; whimper 

of pain he lets out when the deteriorating discs in his spine ache too badly for him to walk 

& his body bends backwards; when he walks me to my car at night so i don’t have to go alone. membrane of dragonfly’s wings held up to the sun over water. the smell of heat lightning 

lingering in summer evenings from behind a metal window screen. my 

fingers wrap loose shackles around wrists when sun sinks into earth’s horizon 

the way my body dissolves beneath lukewarm bath water’s surface, hair billowed 

into black-ink swirls & cheeks extended into the most perfect of near-perfect circles. the poetry 

of me is written in scarred, sacred skin—a beauty mark above upper lip; a freckle at the top 

of a thigh; dimples at the base of this animal skin’s spine. poetry of me exists in words 

inside these lungs; wounds bleed when they breathe & mouth tastes blood like a swallow

full of sunshine in the middle of july. i swore 

the sun followed me as a child raced against my mother’s minivan my 

forehead pressed against the glass of a portal overlooking scorched corn 

fields. she pressed down the back of my neck, rays like warm palms closed my eyes beneath her 

in afternoon & flew. we mourned each other at night, but in the moon i found 

my eyes; illuminated pupils & wisps of lashes suspended on a halo dizzied up 

& spinning