Nova

At my mind’s altar I stand,

Delivering the eulogy for one of my former selves

Heads bowed, midnight-clad willows weep 

Another fist-full of years stands fixed on the dusty shelves.

New eyes bloom as older ones surrender to sleep

In the borrowed grains from a defunct hourglass I had dug his grave

Buried him beside the others

His eyes were my eyes. Had been my mother’s. 

I had put a seed in the palm of his hand,

So the world wouldn’t forget he’d been here

In the face of his fate, he’d felt as impotent as a spider web woven to catch a falling star

He’d gone forward still

He knew the pain of not knowing was his void to fill

Besides, even stars eventually met their end

He wondered if you could feel it coming

Wondered if, at the end, Hemingway had thought about Jordan and that cool drink of water

If there were really any bells

He’d been waiting to hear the bells

Marking the day he’d join his other selves

Until then he’d pay that price

For he knew that even a great sculptor of worlds could one day find himself cradling a shotgun

Knew the drops in his bucket would one day form the swells of an ocean.

He paid that price

Like the others before him

Now, in my ribcage, he was alive again. They all were.

Reunited with their kin, his memories settled into their new abode.

© Axel Cooper, 2013

Water drops on spider web
Photo by US Fish & Wildlife Service
from Wikimedia Commons

Sleeping Places

I slept with Hieronymus while he dreamt up hell.

It’s not the same on panel, oh no: wood can’t hold color like that,

or the tongue in my ear that moved so slow, sounded like fangs.

But now I know how to keep quiet, and I still keep quiet.

I used to live in a house of sticks, but don’t worry, because this time

I built it with diorite and planted snapdragons in the yard.

At night I lock the doors and post my love letters in the window.

He only lit his cigarettes with matches--makes it taste better, he said,

and once while he smoked in bed, he dropped the box, and

I still find them sometimes, tangled in the sheets.  They scratch

my thighs and try for fire, but my bed is made of water.

I don’t think he realized that I dream too, and once I dreamt

I awoke at low tide holding a man-o-war like a bag of sand.

And over a sunless day, it slipped through my fingers, slithered away.

© Katherine Freeman, 2013

"Hell," by Hieronymus Bosch, circa 1490-1515
Oil on panel
Venice, Doge's Palace
Image from Wikimedia Commons