With a quilt on my lap
my fingers fiddle and fret
and tease a snag in the cloth.
The wind is ruthless--
the dark is a drunken stab at the night.

Behind me,
puddles of kitchen light
weep over the windowsill
and spill like coffee
over hydrangea leaves.

And Dad
comes with a knitted brow
and points a hobbit-knuckled finger
at clouds that separate us
from heaven.
Almost alive
bloody purple,
like
bruises on God--

I feel vanquished from the grips of
a reality that never mattered
because
it was never here.

I believe in my soul--
death is not a foe
because
when I die
I will float like bright angel breath
above the Earth
I will cloud stained-glass windows
until they shatter
I will warm the palms of lovers
I will be a scream into the forest
I will be the echo.

I watch dust forge
with wind
and make rain ghosts
And I feel full and falling
and stark with truth
And I feel the way one might feel
as death breathes its passion
over them
And they lie there and pulsate in
a gray slumber--

I feel as if
this is all I have ever felt
and nothing will shake me again.
Maybe
my insides are so twisted
that
I’ll never love anyone
the way I love
my chaos.