To Cheat Death

The Morguefile

In my dreams
we cheat death

pulling toes backward
just in time

announcing lists
to empty air.

There are things to be said
though not the time to say them,

instead, they crowd my heart
take up small rooms.

We sort through them
and hope that is enough.



copyright/all rights reserved Audrey Howitt 2015


Two friends died unexpectedly this week.  I am a bit lost in it right now.

Posted for Dverse

The Cost of Love

the morguefile

i scrape with serrated edges,

the endometriosis 

of love's stain,

it's bruising

quietly purpling

the edges of my eyes.

i fathom its ache

in cycles of days

lost.

when i stop counting

will it be time again

to lift the knife?

copyright/all tights reserved Audrey Howitt 2015

Not sure where this came from exactly. Perhaps, a post Valentine's Day sigh--

Posted today for Poets United Pantry

Love at 19

wikimedia commons

 Stylized rendering of a cross-section of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus.

Los Alamos National Laboratory

In the Public Domain in the United States

i seldom think about you now,
the burn
extinguished
in a box of parliaments long ago.

your fingers stained
with the dye
of his hair
in some alley

brilliantine
on black.

so many colors
there before i closed
my eyes to you
or was it you to me?

when it took you down,
that disease we didn't have a name for--
not then,

i sat on your bed
and fed you ensure
and told you about the
daughter i was pregnant with,
the one you wanted.

you died that night.
i saw the blinking light,
a message on a piece of tape.
but i knew
when i saw the light.

did i tell you
that i loved you then
i think i did.

i still do.


copyright/all rights reserved Audrey Howitt 2015

for Kerry's Challenge at Real Toads

The Uninvited

morguefile

dreamy glass by marlene dietrich

by Arien

windows tells stories,
sometimes ones
you wish you could hide.

they breathe,
insinuating themselves
into forms uninvited

forming agreements
between the inside and outside of me
until i wonder which is which.

copyright/all rights reserved Audrey Howitt 2015


Posted this rainy morning for Poets United Pantry

The Weaving of Lives

the morgue file

1.

i knit a blanket
out of old merino,
bits tied
ends tucked
needles clacking
over time.

i find myself
in their rhythm,
pulling through
until i am warm again.

2.

there is no there
between us,
only a voided space
held together
by bits of string
left over
from other projects
found in baskets
underneath my bed.

i had thought
them to be of no use,
but edges unravel,
and i cannot help it.
repairs are inevitable.

3

the bits of us
scattered
across beds,
our lives
a pastiche
displayed.


copyright/all rights reserved AudreyHowitt 2015

posted for Poets United

59 and Counting

wikimedia commons

Death of the Grave Digger

Carlos Schwabe

in the public domain in the United States

i look for bits of me
under beds
in drawers.

dust bunnies run amok.

there was a time
i knew who i was,
it was clear.

on tuesdays
i taught.

on sundays
i slept in,
held your love between my teeth
and inhaled
your scent off my pillow.

fifty nine.
i say it
over and over.

it feels old.

maybe it is.

i look for the youth
i left
stubbornly clinging
to boxes of lace,
afraid to let myself go.

if i opened
the lid just once
would i know myself
in the things
i placed in there
so long ago. . .

fifty nine
years, losing bits of me
i would cry
but i can't find that part of me.


copyright/all rights reserved Audrey Howitt 2015

Posted for Real Toads

The Wave of Breath

wikimedia commons

Nasa. Bob Cahalan

This Landsat 7 image of clouds off the Chilean coast near the Juan Fernandez Islands (also known as the Robinson Crusoe Islands) on September 15, 1999, shows a unique pattern called a "von Kármán vortex street." This pattern has long been studied in the laboratory, where the vortices are created by oil flowing past a cylindrical obstacle, making a string of vortices only several tens of centimeters long. Study of this classic "flow past a circular cylinder" has been very important in the understanding of laminar and turbulent fluid flow that controls a wide variety of phenomena, from the lift under an aircraft wing to Earth's weather.

Endings 

confound me

in their ability to make themselves known

in morning hours filled with light,

in dreams 

which foretell

those truths 

blithely overlooked

during day's cognizance.

In dreams, I learn

to ride the wave of breath

to its natural end,

a replenishment 

of that interior landscape

so ready to receive.

So too,

today's end

wrapping itself around a calendar date

which marches forward

regardless of intent.

I breathe.

copyright/all rights reserved Audrey Howitt 2015