I plot my course by three stars:
Charlotte,
Edison,
and Alexandra.

Charlotte oscillates
With the energy of a frozen heaven.
Her hair, a weave of dust
Between my outstretched sextant fingers.
She slyly winks with a dark humor.

Edison is the sun.
His warmth creates worlds.
He bathes those who surround him
In compassion
And the wisdom of the gods.

Alexandra is the smallest,
but she sings an old song.
She may be hidden by her siblings’ shine.
Yet, everyone hears her whisper.
She speaks softly to Cassiopeia.
She lightly strokes Lyra.
We all dance to her pulse.

All three form the constellation, Potential.
I look to the heavens and I see a future unrealized.
I see a distant possibility.
I want to pluck them from the heavens.
I want to cradle them in my arms.
In each one, I see an aspect of the universe -
The mother who birthed them.

I pick my feet through the bones of my burned out house.
I step over a melted lamp, its fixture fused by the heat
As it juts from the wreckage like a survivor’s limb
The twisted metal vaguely resembles
A limp human hand.

I perilously walk across the untouched steel bar that reinforced the floor
I approach the island of surviving floorboards.
There’s a fiendish groan.
My foot cracks through a weak spot.

There is a pile of blackened rubble.
I lift each charred board.
I excavate the reams of smoked gypsum
I unearth a cracked throne
Still gleaming white beneath the soot.
It had fallen into the kitchen when the second floor collapsed.

I unearth the stone basement steps.
There’s exploded cans of stewed tomato,
Cooked onto the stone,
Like paint with plenty of texture.
I descend into what was supposed to be the family room
We were going to build it someday,
Have a lounge and a foosball table,
Maybe a bar and dartboard.
Whenever I had got around to finishing the basement.

In the corner, our trail bikes have melted together.
The water heater, an exploded cigar.
The unused exercise equipment, a jungle of fused metal.
All mutated mementos and refused requiems.

Everything is still wet.
From when the fire fighters perfunctorily
extinguished the smoking heap.
Long razed before they even got onto the scene.
By the time the alarms went off,
the home fires were burnt out.

I have learned many things.
Never live in the country if you want adequate fire coverage.
Always remember your wedding anniversary
Always buy her flowers
And never, ever marry a woman
With a history of arson.

There is a flower that drives men mad.
She only grows on the rocky bluffs of Nothingness.
Only blooms once in a man’s lifetime.
Sprouting where Hakuin clapped his hand,
She remains hidden,
Only to be claimed by the intrepid.
She awaits the bold,
Blessed with strong fingers.
She grants a solitary wish,
To those willing to lose themselves.
In time, in mind, amidst the vined cliffs,
In the waterfalls that ring the Staircase of the Gods.

Colour of the most sanguine red.
Eight petals shaped like tired blades.
Each one curling to the Right.
Four slender pistils,
Sit in a shapely cup.
She’s beautiful,
Deadly.
She obliterates the Is.

I climbed to claim her.
But when I clutched her,
She withered.
When I freed her,
She flourished.
I meditated on her scent.
And heard thunder –
A muted Mu.

I want to tell you everything.
I want to be vulnerable ala Brenee Brown
I want to cure my toxic masculinity
By embracing my “femininity”
And exposing trauma so deep you can drown.

After all, you have the degrees
A veritable mistress of butterflied psyches
Schooled in pin boards and dichotomies
joined on the patriarchy.
Motherhood meets mastery and empathy.
Listening without judgement
While leaving me to a jury of my own peers,
Erected egotic edifices eroded by the winds
Blowing through cryptic crossroads
that challenge me to slay my father.

Be my therapist.
I want to tell you everything.
Let me cry into your arms.
And hold me with the strength
that I will never know.

Creator of Worlds

You make art.
You summon emotion from a featureless plane.
Your slender hands guide indelible ichor.
through unforgiving curves
Where perspective means everything
And assumptions nothing.

A picture is worth a thousand poems
Regardless of the brevity of the imagery
I can describe a hand with allusions and allegory
But you start with a base of originality
You can sketch a hand that people can see
The same way we all see hands.
You can stipple in textures
Showing the callousness of over worked fingers.