winter sun

i’ve been thinking about my body
and all the places god has never been.

my heart has potential,
it’s a small town
berry patch on the crest of the boreal.
i used to mourn the tree line
surrounding,
hated the way the waters were hidden
by the thick burden of poplar;
i’d look up to the stars and pray someone
would find me and take pity,
pluck me from the rows of dirt
and sanctify me on new ground, new waters.

i’m terrified to know it entirely –
presences i feel in the ferry
with gentle hands on the steer,
aimed always on the horizon.
beyond the poplar is the nelson
and here the buoys stay solid,
remain honest, just anchor
me divine.
the clouds are november
and childish
amongst other heartbreaks.
i can’t bring myself to escape
the fluorescence i’m wintered
within:
i can’t grow here,
i want to be spared for the season.
it’s the driveway condemning me
for acting a junkyard,
it’s the yearning for
knit yellow in a cold snap
and soft glow of
ink on alabaster.

i need the winter sun
to keep telling me
i have a world somewhere else
where i’m loved under my bare name.

i can’t drive nails into my wrists alone.
instead i teethe on the asymmetry in bones;
i call in the moon’s nodes, i want
to understand the heartbeat
of a city where the wind shapes
roots against stone.
i don’t want this –
the lethargic gravity
on my body, i want to surrender
to the waters and the moon
that carries them and covers me.
i need to be selfish just this once
and i’ll make it worth the while.

if i become a garden i need a place
to be newly born, to die again, to resurrect.
i want life in my square palms
in a room of light.