Two poems in The Writer

I am the anchor,
tethering you here.

The thread weeds, and the stone,
a treacherous weight.
I am the moon drowning you with an angry high tide,
then pulling back, apologetic.

A howling summer storm,
then the sodden ground
that squelches up between your toes
to ruin clean feet, to make a mess.

Of everything.

You are dappled sunshine,
a pool of roving warmth
and the unmovable goodness.
Who couldn’t possibly prefer me as I am,
toeing the line of drooping fall,
then the frigid winter,
where nothing grows, nothing thaws.

I am the squall
that moves wreckage in its wake.
An unending siren screaming into the deep woods,
becoming a fallen tree no has yet noticed.

How do I explain,
to children,
that I have a limit
beyond is the void of a cliff.
A galaxy of dark, nothing.

Not every person can be the Phoenix,
burning and rising
flaming then flying.

Often I am the ash,
the soot corners and shadowy smudge.

I am not: fine plumage and preening luster
majestic colors, fanned for attention.
Instead:
I am dread. The angsty teenager
all grown, who makes four beds
and turns them nightly down.
Who bedraggled sighs and says “It’s well enough” and leaves.

Often, the click-snap of my words
sound like the scritch of talons
and so perhaps-
I am a bird,
skeletal feathers askew,
a dopey flat footed fowl
who cannot fly.

Instead, first, the dishes, then more;
the floor.