From One Night to the Next
(After reading a line from an E. E. Cummings poem:“I who have died am alive again today”)
I die and reborn every day
people say I live for one death
yet I die and die every day
from one night to the next.
Memory slants everything
like a crab moving forward
and backward in its shell.
The death and
the undeath of me—
my first breath
a separation
my second breath
loneliness
my third breath
surrender
my fourth breath
love.
After many days
of hanging on
to life I am tired
of the furious men
spilling their fury
all over my land.
Between one form
of death and another
people are haunted
crystals of hurt
corridors of hurry
hurry time passing
lethal to the left
lifegiving to the right
hate curdled in their past.
A Leopard in My Ravenna-Bryant Neighborhood
On my walk in the neighborhood
a walk walked a hundred thousand times
a route where I believe I’ve seen
everything there is left to see
I see something never seen before.
A crow on top of a jungle gym.
How could I have missed it?
How do we miss these startling things?
On my walk to my bed
a walk walked a million times
a passage where I’ve seen
everything close to me
I see something never seen before.
A spider crawling out of a crack in the wall.
How could I have missed it?
How do we miss these shattering things?
On my walk to my grave
a walk walked many a nighttime
a cemetery where I’ve seen
chaos conflict decay death
everything I’m supposed to see
I see something never seen before.
A leopard sitting atop a stone slab luring me.
How could I have missed her?
How do we miss these spotted savage things?
Bionote
Geri Gale’s award-winning books include: Patrice: a poemella (2015 Silver IPPY Award: GLBT Fiction, Independent Publisher Book) and Alex: The Double-Rescue Dog (2016 National Indie Excellence Award, Picture Book, Finalist); and Waiting: prosepoems (Dancing Girl Press). She is also a 2016 Moth StorySLAM winner and performed in the Moth Seattle Grand Slam. Currently she works as a copyeditor at Starbucks Creative Studio and writes and draws at night and on weekends. Kirkus Reviews wrote of her debut book Patrice: a poemella—“An intense, sumptuous prose-poetry exploration of inspiration, sacrifice and art. A baroque, sensual tour de force that elevates art above all else.” Her poetry and prose have appeared in Sinister Wisdom, South Loop Review: Creative Nonfiction + Art, Bayou Magazine, Under the Sun, Raven Chronicles, Sunday Ink, Otoliths, and the Canadian Jewish Outlook.
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