“Engine”

to: the heart of a stolen planet

i don’t know what i keep in my sleeve

gentle rat

ghosts

lady painter ghosts,

freckled laughing fairy

ghosts.

i am holding the skeleton of a bird

gently

up against my stomach

don’t be scared to speak

in extinct languages

the frequency of its missing wing

is the light

filling my chest

with slipping music

smooth

buttering the street into streams

clean enough

to sweat from that singing

and to be

baptized

in it

“Persephone”

portals/earthquakes

This feels strange

I’m 1/2 a portal I don’t like,

I love the other one all the time

My mother, when she walks, trees sing and shout

blooming songs buzzing

tripping bees carrying light-

-flecks on water

I was peering at everything through the sun around her waist

I wanted to close my eyes in the dark and be with him

a heartbeat in caves and tunnels

birds nests, underground gems’ roots

suddenly appear to me everywhere

in x-ray, beautiful bones,

did you know

the moon floats

underwater?

inside my blood always

ticking with her brightness

portals,

half of me is where I am

earthquakes on either side

both should fear the water under my crown

and I can no longer be blasted bright green dance to blue sky

without seeing their skeleton roots

nor can I lie down in the shadows

without wanting sunlight and green skin

to eat.