At The Trestle

Navigating rapids,
being battered by waves,
flailing in riptides:
for decades, the assay.

Perhaps that’s why
these ripples and reflections
call to me now
to make amends. 

I let my soul be stroked
with the bristles
coating with liquid layers
in redemption, baptismal:

acquittal.

A sibyl
reinstated.

Something about this river
brings back the scribbles
on my slate. 

I linger
at the trestle bridge, 
toes across inverted sky, skim. 
I know it is a portal
to where I have been.

I chant the rising words
to be let
in… 

Suffice

Artificial light
will suffice
when I employ
on quiet walks
my creative devices
to make art
during heart-
survival crises

until it all naturally passes,
as all weather is designed to do;
I need to do better with storm preparations,
though He always sees ahead and sees me 
through.

Tonight, to distract
with creative play,
I replace and extend
a stem with manmade

until the flower becomes a tower,
and then I ignite the beacon,
and let the moon console 
a lonely orb romantic-dreaming.

I do these magnificent things
not only to take focus away from the pain 
but because it gives me the control and power 
as an abuse-survivor to manipulate 
in a positive way. 

I do it for you, but really and also 
for me, selfishly, 
but if you and I both need it, 
how comforting it then becomes for us
to become “we.” 

You’ve been here too, 
I know, as I have been there, 
not these same tracks
but in the aches that echo,
shared.