His hair contains the texture of a long
morning in bed. I kneel beside his body,
my hands near his head, his breath already
in time with my world. Blood marks his forehead.
I rub it away, and like anyone’s mother
Smoothing the part, I let my hand linger
on his head, until I hear others near,
the ground shivering with the quick approach, Continue reading “His Arrival”
Tag: Tam Lin
Hidden
Under the bridge, the white morning glories
rest from the work that has circled them in,
that has pinched energy into rest, life
into death, bloom into shell of that bloom.
I run over that bridge, desire like wood
splintering from me and landing in vines.
I hear them whisper about me. I hear
everything whisper about me—the trees,
the grass, the wind. I am known like I never
was inside those walls. I am known unlike
a girl before people, in the hunting
moon, in the time of the wolf’s breath, my life
hidden in reeds titled by the current.
I appear when thorns etch my lines in dust.
–Shaun Perkins
Preparation
The sewing needle rests next to my eighth
vertebrate. I cannot feel it but know
it is there. The thread circles my kidneys
like amber capillaries. A sloping
row of real pearl buttons, tiny full moons,
bump into my small intestine. Silk blocks
wrap the ligaments of my arms, as if
my bones are on fire and must be bandaged
by something cool. A piece of lace crumpled
into a triangle lines my womb. All
that I am, all of my tools and notions,
I have swallowed and absorbed. I now leave
their world. I open the door to the night
and drink my thimbles before I run out.
–Shaun Perkins
(Tam Lin)
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 