Signs are for the Birds
This is not a burst
of restless energy or
an arrhythmia of
unknown origin,
this is the universe
blowing wind through
your veins, trying
to get your attention
from the inside out.
It weaves a message
through the fog
to fill your lungs
with purpose
then taps the answer
that lies in that murky
spot within.
Now it tosses light
onto the dirt path
before you
so you will step
with sure footing,
and yet still
you shift your limbs
as though they
are made of glass.
It is growing edgy,
fed up pointing at
all these mislaid pieces
that fit seamlessly
together.
It is yelling something
about your feet now,
about how they are
planted on the exact
spot of earth
that was meant
for your footprints,
about how you are
being a stubborn badass
who won’t lean in,
take note and trust
this freaking cascade
of signs.
Make a Moment
My dear,
you have done all
that a shaken leaf
can do.
Please stop
beating your heart
for being
who you are,
and make a moment
for forgiveness.
When your breath
stops rushing between
lungs and lips,
reach into this
deepest fault
and lift that
unscarred part
who knows the sky
and light in you,
who breathes
your truest magic.
Dear, please
quiet those thoughts
that spin
your mind.
Now walk this self
into a sunlit room
and let it spill
your secrets.
An Open Letter to My True Self
I fed these ideas bricks,
allowed them to grow
fat and heavy with doubt,
render me motionless
while your voice rose
into the ether. You, who
sang of atmosphere,
who spun the wind
around you.
I’m ready to toss
these weights, silence
those unruly notions.
Help me trace your
whisper back home.
Let me hear this song
you’ve been humming,
teach me how to sing
of light.
Unbecoming
I shall start this day
by engaging in an act
of unbecoming.
I shall begin
by awakening my ears
to the sound of
stretching.
Next,
I will peel away the voices
not of my making
and expose a self
that waits within.
I will lend it
what breath I have
for now.
Though the sun
has not yet risen,
I will bathe its skin
in light,
I shall allow
the universe to pour
into its most
minuscule cells
and spin inside.
With any luck
all this whirling
and light-tossing
will create a vastness
that will dislodge
the truest parts of me.
These pieces
shall swell; I shall
not stop this.
For some indefinite
period,
I shall be enormous
and small
at the same time,
I shall strike a balance.
I shall untangle this self
from the day’s
business
and feel something
in me float and
vibrate.
I will rise up
and make far more effort
to resist my couch.
Oxytocin
Sometimes I awaken
with an air rising in me
that sounds something
like wind climbing,
like silk winding,
like a cradlesong or hum
or some mysterious
harmony.
It had felt
like your voice
wrapping itself
around me
from the inside,
but maybe
it’s been mine
trying to sing a love song
to myself.
Claudine Nash‘s previous collections include her full-length poetry book Parts per Trillion (Aldrich Press, 2016) and her chapbook The Problem with Loving Ghosts (Finishing Line Press, 2014). Her poems have won prizes from Avalon Literary Review, Eye on Life Magazine, Lady Chaos Press, and The Song Is… and have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies including Asimov’s Science Fiction, Cloudbank, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal and Yellow Chair Review amongst others. She also has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. Website: www.claudinenashpoetry.com
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