week eight

Bursting to tell
busting a button
busy and buttoned-up.
Keep mum,
mum's keeping,
hoping it's for keeps.

[early June 2012]

i think of you

I think of you
often, sister friend --
longing, waiting,
or no longer able
to wait long.
I am full
where your
emptiness aches
and we count weeks
in unison
(but not really).
You cried happy tears
for me
drawn from a
deep well of grief,
and I winced at your hug.
I am sorry.
There is not much
more to say,
except that I
see you,
I remember you.
You are beautiful.

week seven haiku

I am two kinds of sick,
but still five kinds of happy:
I like those numbers.

six weeks

We don't talk about it,
except to ourselves --
even then only in the
hypothetical --
which makes it feel all
the less real.
Stranger still, I feel
perfect. Not even a twinge.
I would swear we made
the whole thing
up if I didn't have
a featherweight
flutter of hope
in my gut.

[mid-May 2012]

week five

God of the big wild world
Be small.
Dive down into the ball of cells,
the miracle,
the deep magic,
and make your mark.
Look with love
and mercy on this tiny
coil of tight-sprung
life. Glory--
all glory to You.

[early May 2012]

happy secret

We hold a happy secret,
you and I.
As yet invisible,
imperceptible
except as two thin
purple lines.
Soon this secret will
most likely make me sick-
but not like other
secrets might-
a healthy sick (there is
such a thing).
We hold it now,
like a butterfly lit
on our open hands:
awe-struck.

[early May 2012]

all work and no poems

All work and no poems
makes Haley a
tightly-wound girl.
Deciding, packing, moving,
adjusting, and growing,
but no writing.
Patience, friends --
the words are building
behind the wall of work,
gestating, forming,
living --
and getting ready to live.