POETRY

the swallows from our eyes

We drift over pine trees,

lime and cedar,

we see the world,

a gumbo of flavors,

unkissed lovers waiting

to fly once more—

wings still sowed shut.

We flutter among green bristles,

stretching across seas

of amber rooftops,

speak foreign tongues

on Van Gogh clouds,

peer into storybook windows,

Grandma Helga’s cooking

her special Bari pasta dish—

we smell it

every year we pass.

We see virgins in the spring,

grow from follicles of earth,

tangled within seams of late nights,

attempting to fly down drunken stairs.

We soar back in time—

civil war battlefields painted

red and spilled-milk bones,

chocolate Mayan ruins

are pathways to the morning star.

At night we ride

the horns

of the moon.