Jennifer Patino

We’re Learning That Time Is Making Us Miserable

Why keep ourselves so constricted to something as meaningless as a clock right now?

The room holds its breath
as slate blue mother rises
to this glorious occasion

dawn rises
singing her canticles,
touches the killing fields

I am clinging to
memories of
blue parakeets
lullaby-ing me
to sleep

Glacier blue walls
and the autumn
scent of spiced apples…
means I’ve woken
up in Michigan.

the dancers become flames
devouring my heart

conversations about hips /
conversations about
catching up

a verbal knife wound
twisting
every fiber of my being
until I’m
scrubbed raw

…voice the scraping metal
sound of teeth
on a fork,…

the dandelion fields
hold splendor
& the May sky speaks