Commissions

It hurts more when someone else picks open a wound.
It’s so easy to become numb to your own fingers
As you dig persistently at raw skin.
You want the hole to close, but that scab just keeps inviting more pain.

She sits bright red on her stem,
Blushing as the cold draws near.
Twisting to the rhythm of the days,
Her sistren line dark limbs as they dance.

She is the first to tear away,
Twirling and gliding to freedom on the floor.
Her flight is swift and thrilling,
The dirt rising up to meet her back too soon.

She loses her vibrancy as she sprawls,
Staring up at the brilliant crimson she used to be.
Sistren behold their fallen,
But dance ever closer to their own cliff’s edge.

I hear them running down the hall
I hear them scratching on the wall
They come out when I try to sleep
And in my dreams they tend to creep
I see their essence on the floors
Sprinkled and sprayed upon the doors
When I try to lie in bed
They’re on my pillow, in my head
They cry for me when time to feed
Presenting me with a bloody deed
So violent in their loud affair
Teeth and hair fly everywhere
But when I look to find the source
They’ve gone and found a brand new course

I seek a treasure long buried
Beneath the Mattaponi mud.
Sediment clings to long fingers,
Burrowing under untrimmed nails.
It is soft yet firm, gripping on its own.
It wants to take my arm for itself,
Just as it took this treasure.

Not all of time rests in grains of sand.
Some time flows like mud:
Swollen, grasping, sucking in,
But only whistling out.
Crab bubbles float to a surface
That swallowed something far greater.
Nothing escapes the dark glue with ease.

Here I learned where I didn’t belong.
Many stayed placid, but I was the current.
I ran till I emptied out into the sea
And floated to terra incognita.
I found tides as strong as me
And haven’t been home since.
But I need something I left behind . . . .

My hand closes around the lost treasure,
Freeing it from the vacuum of mud
That clouds the water beneath the surface.
The treasure breaches, glue sloughing from tissue,
The chambers pumping in my hand
As the remains of freshwater escape
From long clogged and clotted veins.

The Mattaponi carries away the time I lost
Trying to stay in place with those lingering.
I turn the treasure over and smile
As blood floats downstream in preparation.
Feeling it warm in the light of the sun,
The gentle rhythm of life beats in my hand.
“Come my heart,” I say. “Home awaits.”