in-between

Would you be willing
to speak from the fringes,
to spill from the edges,
to gaze from the margins
imagining border crossings?
Would you be willing
to wait at the gate,
to stand at the doorway,
to keep open your heart
as much as the door?

To be always on the cusp
of beginnings, and of ends,
and the in-between possibilities.

responsibility

How do we begin this – and where –
This undoing, unknotting, unmaking,
unmasking, unsilencing, unhiding?
Perhaps start with that call for help
addressed to no one in particular.
It is meant for you –
You alone, as much as you too.

Are you response-able?
What provokes your response?
To whom are you responsible?

resonance

In mythology, Echo was cursed
never to be able to express
an original word of her own.
What curses do you echo
in your acts and omissions?

Resounding silences need
spokespersons too, sometimes.
Perhaps you want to consider.

resistance

They might write of you as a hero,
for your refusal to walk with them.
I suspect they will prefer you a villain,
the rebel without an acceptable cause.
Chances are you won’t be remembered –
That might be their greatest victory.

After all memory has no market value,
And History’s account of victors
paints resistance very differently.

meeting

We have met before.
I was a certain ‘I’ then,
Which ‘you’ were you?
Now, as we meet again,
across this strange screen,
twice-removed, or more,
I am uncertain which ‘I’
is meeting which ‘you’.

I keep my mask handy,
for when I am summoned
on video. What about you?

baggage

I remember that day clearly.
A warm summer afternoon
the sun breathed heavily,
the ceiling fan whirred in pain.
Suitcases of questions
had arrived home with you.
Later that evening, no one knew
what we were unpacking, or why.

The suitcases are empty now.
But our everyday conversations
are somehow so much heavier.

being/ becoming

The continuities of being –
the irruptions of becoming –
but always in layers, partial.


always in layers, partial –
The continuities of becoming – 

And the irruptions of being.