title

also by alison malee

shifting bone

be brave. the day is ready for you.

this book is a small bird fluttering outside a window. i want you, dear reader, to be the hand. the opened latch. the wide eyes. the please, stay awhile.

for the wild dreamer,

let these words sneak up behind you.

let them tap you on the shoulder.

let it be the most unexpected surprise.

for the lost and stumbling,

let these words be the language

you needed to breathe again.

for the little girl i once was,

let these words make you proud.

let this honesty be a sign of forgiveness.

for you,

i have saved all of these moments.

some sway like untouched ghosts,

some roar and spit and rattle.

some, drifting lilies.

some, like clay in the wet, wet burrows of earth.

for the family i never knew,

i want you to know about

the things that have happened.

the people i have been along the way.

the world as i have come to know it.

for the people who

have always held my manic heart,

i hope you understand.

contents

unmovable things

a restless pause

prayers like exhales

index

unmovable
things

never

nothing about love is easy.

we are always too loud,

sometimes too soft.

always too caged,

sometimes too free.

no one ever told me

that love is the teeth

that bite your lip

without apology.

the blood that runs.

the first aid kit.

the alcohol, the gauze,

the sting.

the mouth that

kisses, k i s s e s, kisses

it better.

or the mouth that tells you

there was never

any wound at all.

will be

in this way, the undertow

is only a metaphor for surviving.

do you understand?

the currents only exist to explain grief.

so when i tell you i am drowning,

i mean that, today,

the loss sits on my chest

less like a paperweight

and more like air turned

carbon monoxide without warning.

the earth spins consistently.

most days i am ready for it.

and when i can breathe, i am floating.

the ocean swallow is a sometimes. you know?

it moves quickly.

but see the sun through the rippling water,

the light, it is close. do you understand?

do you understand now?

i am telling you i have been injured

by an unknown thing.

injured but not conquered.

i kick. i fling arms through salt and crash.

i fight my way to the surface.

in this way, though i am not now,

i will be fine.

both of us

this heart and i

spend all day

wanting.

(it eats us up like wildfire.)

alone

i look for you between time-thickened shadows,

in the one open window. beneath moth-bitten lace.

at the outskirts of town. in the deep end of the public pool.

at the country club somewhere in the midst

of dollar signs and tightened skin.

i empty the ocean. peel sand from the fins of every beast.