Eggs

The octopus does not ask

what about me

as she passes,

week after week,

hundreds upon thousands of eggs

from her siphon

wrapping them in bundles from the strings of her body

hanging them about her with her many giving arms

she starves herself

cradling these potentially lifeless pearls

for the rest of her short life 

she does nothing but give of her body

not a thought for the things she will never do

the ways the dangling white teardrops

have become all that she is

her existence, she understands,

has been all in the liquid suspension

and nothing more

The Frost

When the sticky clatter of the mind-wasps

trapped together with their tangled feet,

and agitated scratching,

become one confused swarm

in the hollow nut of the skull

there is always this:

the frost spread like thin, sweet icing
over the field this morning

in a delicate lace,

not in the least bit inquisitive about how it got there

or what will become of it

come noon.

Briars

When you ask what I’ve been writing

and I laugh

I mean just this:

I have not been bearing witness

or gingerly assembling any pieces

or holding quiet space.

I have not been doing The Work.

I have been skimming my eyes over only the surface of things

catching the burrs and briars that wait there

believing that the sting of their niggling prickle is something real to carry around,

until they are tumbleweeds between my ribs

and I can bellow

Look at these thorns in my life! 

And you kindly acknowledge them between squinted eyes

though you know there is nothing there.