The thing that camps out all night on the cusp of your taste buds

by James Diaz

Hid under stove light
listening, leaning in
for rain water
the latter days of a badly lived life
your brow burning
with a story you don't know how to tell

fills me
but no light in the undertow
a body asleep
in its secondary life
a home is a secret
the bruises of youth buries
up to my knees
in a row of...

west
(how blood is no foundation)
tomorrows odds,
how a mother is no mystery

God if you are so compassionate
be still,
I have many arrows to throw your way
illegible body scribble
a pulse the bones bend with

it is your day to day
whisper,
but I wont

then scream

after you,
I am after you.

The trail has no equal

by James Diaz

If who were in this? And not a near by thing
in all roots tortured by the incremental seriousness
foot fall in past
teething even the memory
or dream we don’t dream anymore

all of our envy put into the good parts of the soil
into the well tested earth
water none I leave and can love by rain
incapable of much more, heavy lifting
screaming, the rivers aren't flowing
naturally anymore

who has what I have- seen or not
the low lovable fruit smell
sun in more ways than one can count-
adding precious tokens to our blindness

I don’t understand
and fitted into earth, root, sit with good intentions
tidal wave crayon drawing
for sunflower or canyon, burning
frost of you, north of you,
where anyone belongs
but won’t go there alone.

Folded, then again, a porch looses another board

by James Diaz

From where I had been
sitting, to now, shaking
off the rain,
remembering what objects
went into which drawers,
refilling certain jars,
and leaving others empty-
everything, incredible
or dull, as it had been
before- suddenly changed-
I could begin to believe
that we could learn we
were not so awful,
to each other, yes,
still at times-
but to all that we could
never know of ourselves,
was perhaps the greatest
amount of kindness, that
needed only words, yet
didn’t know how to be named-
and maybe, would never speak
‘itself’, even if it could,
As I crossed the street, as I
went home, as I peered into
things, took everything closely,
under the eye, the nose,
the nervous nap- I began to
trust that I would not have
to answer for any of it.