169.

What am I supposed to do
When I remember how to love
Everything,
Again?

168.

You wanted me to stay
quiet. But the threads kept sprouting
and reaching and turning into
beams of light. I understand,
some people are too large
for each other. A crocodile, then?
What would you like me to be today?
Teeth too white to be one
of your piano girls. Pearl wallpaper,
lilies, birch -- no, this place
is too good for us.

167. Haiku: On movement.

It has been ten months.
What have you found out there? Me:
A nice place to sleep.

166.

I would like to become a huntress,
a lantern. The noise that cracks you open
from sleep.

And yet it goes on.
In a way that is not quite horrible
but not quite lovely either.
No, this is not
a gift.

I would like to find my way home.

165.

I no longer have an overabundance
   of patience.
The well of wealth
that I would not have expected to suffer
with age. Where or who
   did I leave it with?
How many times
do I have to bury the room
in flowers?

164.

It is easier to speak
of the things we do not need.

It is impossible for me to be with a person
for years, without eventually becoming the diver
in a cage. Even if there are no teeth for miles.
Even if the ocean sings to me.

I would not be a good mother.
Leaving is ingrained in the nature
of my body. My veins may very well be
the braille of a map.

My grandmothers used to tell me
in soft agreement, to only marry a man
that would set me
on fire. I don't believe in such torrid heat,
but I sleep with rose quartz
under my pillow.

163.

Some days I wake up
and have to check
for my limbs.
I must have been waiting
a long time,
but now I only want my blood
to start flowing
the right way again.

162.

He tells me that I am a wild animal,
the way my legs carry me
when I am startled, and later,
the same legs around his waist.

Some days I'm the lion,
other days I wish
I was the lion. It's a good thing
that you don't live here anymore.