& I have been running straightforward into

every dream sewn into every night's curtain

 

in search of a hole burrowed somewhere between

the forest of dreams & the grassland of reality.

 

there's nothing more gutting than the realization

of the loss of a thing you never palmed.

 

God cut off something from me or perhaps 

it's the horned being that turns a glass of water

 

into a body of grief—a mass of saltwater—

            / that turns an angel into a wingless bird

/ that turns the morning sky into a sinking voice.

 

see, I'm searching for a door in a room of stars.

I have been fishing—casting my net deep into a 

 

colony of desolation, with a desire to recover my 

treasure. my mother keeps dreaming of my [ ] brother

 

throwing himself into the haven of her chest. 

I still hike a narrowed path looking for a river 

 

that I can love into rain.     I still harbor a desire 

            to pull sunlight / a music box from life's throat 

& dance with happiness in my hands. 

 

I am still standing before a looking glass

& holding my face.            I am still—