Ephemera

In Ephemera, winged creatures elegize and celebrate the beauty of evanescence simultaneously. The poems speak to the ambivalence of coming of age beset by the daily trials of chronic illness as viewed through the lens of femininity and love in the confessional tradition.

Odysseus

 

Difficult to divine how you arrived,

not water-doused or mail-slotted to me,

but whole in your stone-centered gaze, almost

tired out by your ninety days under stars.

Satisfied by none, you chose me to be

your canary, waiting, green with hope for

 

your return. Coming home from the back-woods,

you made me into your mooring, fashioned

yourself into a pilgrim to my bed’s

unmade shrine. I’ll make a Ulysses out

of you yet. Yes, the butterfly kind, blue

body mild as the Aegean, crushing.

 

I will weave our dreams together: never

go back to sea without me as your mate.