The Poetry Marathon

If you lose sight of the moon

There’s a spare

In the lake

If you lose sight of yourself

There are stars

In the canopy

If you lose sight of me

Feel beneath your breastbone

I’m in there

What do they see when they see me?

Not the careful hours of folding

The precise measurements and testing

Sure, they see all the bags and maybe

The passport full of stamps

They may hear me coming

Out of breath with jangling trinkets

If I pass closely by they may smell incense

Or sweat. Or the weird hotel shampoo

But they don’t see me

Because they haven’t seen what I’ve seen

With my own eyes

Or followed my nose down market streets

Or heard what whispers and cries still

Ring in my ears

They don’t understand that I

Never left home

I carry it with me and

Every step takes me closer

I never thought that I could love a dog

as much as you. Especially a bed hog

or one who likes to chew

the eyes off my Beanie Baby zoo.

I never thought I’d meet a dog

Quite as smart as you.

Let alone live with a dog

That loves me like you do.

Even when we’re trying

To get closer to her

We build barriers

Put on shoes

Hide behind glass

Then caption pictures with

“Back to nature”

Sorry about this

I’m out of inspiration

Let’s wait an hour

I wish

I could make it through one day

Without having to worry about getting

fingerprints on my

glasses

The polar bear runs a graceful curved claw along her ear. At the end of a long night, she sighs a long breath of mist into the long dawn. She stretches and her soft paws make no noise on the hoarfrost. She has lived as many days as years. A paradox her southern cousins wouldn’t understand.

A night six months long

The play of two white shadows

Life begins again

Infamous blue

Is the color that lights up

Downturned laughter

Upraised eyebrows

Two noses, almost touching

Two teardrops, oceans apart

Even if I found It I don’t know if

I would know that it was

good for me

And even if I knew it I don’t

Believe I’d see how good that

it could be

And even if I held it in my hand

I don’t think I could understand

how much it meant to me

Everything was pastel and dull and flat

Overexposed and underdeveloped

There were no stars, no secret midnight kisses

No time on Earth was more boring

Than the time before darkness