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And now I will read my poems.

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I have a cycle of poems.

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And I like the word
cycle because it makes

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me think of a circle of course.

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And it seems that most of my
poems circle around each other

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in some way as if I'm always
asking the same questions

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and sometimes getting
different answers often not.

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And one thing about the poems.

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The first poem
called "Scatterings"

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has been divided
up into short parts

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and will indicate when a
new group of poems begins.

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I'd like you to consider
all these poems if you can

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as stories being
told around a table.

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Perhaps each poem a person
talking to a loved one.

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"Scatterings", one.

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Upon my return to this world
of melted dreams and car

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horns, lumbering days of clean
and sober times, the odor

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of creosote a wall of
certainty and summer skies,

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I cheered more than I was.

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Empty breaths are children.

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My wish to see both
of them as stories

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I told, each longing
in their eyes

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the one I've been trained
to raise my fist to.

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Mirror image of my hands
reaching for the clouds.

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It took all I had to see these
visions as wounds, bandages

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unraveling from oozing skin.

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Other women's eyes bruises that
reappear with the watching.

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You nodded to me for hours.

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Our old love songs led our
daughters down into sleep

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I try to slow my own breathing.

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You held me like a bowl
of rain as everything

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we knew changed form.

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