photomemory

you are brought
back to me
through a curve
in a photo

and a heartflutter
(still,
as ever, nothing
to hold on
to)

milestones

babyshoes,
eat

life is too huge
and you are too beautiful to
shrink yourself like this.

your cheekbones branching
out like whiplines

(mirrored in your
mother's worrylines, darling)

babyshoes, eat.

you are too tiny and
life is too beautiful
to leave yourself like this

(collarbones sticking out
like milestones,
where you have receded from, darling)

and your family. stretching.
calling you from
where you started.

you are So loved

babyshoes, eat.

insomnia

Insomnia (megan)

I send my hands to cup your head

And rock carebears

Into your dreams.

You hands round me

Basketwise

And stories, you fed

Me (halfArchive

HalfImagined)

When our fights were

Selfmade safehouses

-junglegyms we understood

the how to’s of, the length and breadth of

and we ended, if we jumped,

togetherinaheap.

I send my hands

To cup your head

And rock Safe into your

Dreams.

silt

I work with memory.

I hear peoples

Stories and flow

Them through me

Sift them to separate

The words I will use

The ones with the stories

The motives

The motion

And the silt that’s left

Behind sits in me

Like unimportant residues

That clog glaciers

gaudi

You stood behind me

And watched

As I deleted the photos of you

(we were somewhere beautiful)

you announced yourself

and I started

(somewhere magical) caught

in the act of the lie

that would make this weekend

(where we could be)

disappear

mousie

And that newyears that

A baby shrew (or something)

Fell out of the thatch and

We adopted it.

All five of us, littlemothers

 holding

It under out shirts,

To keep it warm. Take turns

With three hour feedings

With

Five mothers, it should have

Had a chance. Thissimple

Thing we could do. Body heat

And eyedropfeeds,

But there were things that had happened

Before we couldnot fix and

We couldn’t fix the inner workings

And you buried (you, fragile

Hands, fragile ribs, strongpulled

Mouth) him, wrapped

In a leaf, on a South Coast Beach.

(this simple thing)