let this be a flower
in a field
on fire.
let this be a train
that moves backwards
the more it moves
forward.
let this be a broken bone,
a fractured sense of self,
a painting with a bullet wound
in its acrylic heart.
let this crack open
the shell of everything.
let this be an ambulance
through the small hallway
of your childhood home.
let this be a wound
that you pick open
every time it scabs.
let this
be spelled incorrectly
but sound perfectly incorrect.
let’s invite god
into the winter of our
grieving.
let’s dishevel
what’s left of our hair,
unbrush the back
of a once-wild horse,
uncover our garden
and introduce it to the frost
like a handshake with a hope
that looks like a blade.
let this kiss you
on both of your kidneys,
two red chalices
holding the anger
of your everyyear.
let this blister
before your lover
invites it to burst all over them
like an afterbirth.
let this sleep
through the war.
let this fight
through the dream.
let us weep
like our tears
could cool down the soil.
let me love you
in a language i will never
learn to speak.
let us honor arrows
for releasing the chi.
let us have an abundance
of only what we want and need,
a poem
that cannot be written,
a million wrong ways
to love each other.
let us dance with the king
of carrot flowers
who only speaks in maybes
until we too wear his carrot crown.
let it die like it was meant to.
let us never cease to grieve
anything,
let it muddle,
and let the muddle muddle
into more muddle,
as is where we birth tomorrow.
let this be a flower
in a field
on fire.
that does not dream
what it can sense before its very very face,
that there is no line
between what is burning
and what is drenched in rain.
Photo: Michael Benz
BRICE MAIURRO 