Katrina Harms

Cradled
Precariously, still
In cotton dunes of blankets
Cold and shadowed in their undulations
...

My restless heart,
creeping from its cavity
to the silent corridors of predawn-
A crackled white bulb of moon
...

Oh beloved,
have you washed yourself of me?
And if so, how then to know
if these longings must abide in dream only?
...

Halfwife

Unfinished business
The only thing keeping me
...

She has feathered her nest
with things found and forgotten
unwanted scraps and trappings of every kind
From garage sale to garbage dump,
...

Oft I have written
Oft I have listened
for that secret wish
within my soul-
...

Je suis désolé-
Je suis désolé que je ne puisse pas vous sauver
Tous ces temps vous m'avez aidé, me faites mal, m'avez aimé,
vous êtes moqués de moi.
...

how can i speak
while
in the face of
...

i'm eight years old again
trying to memorize times tables
waiting for rain puddles
only now
...

my friend doesn’t know how I love her so
when I watch her
timidly
when she smiles
...

Flowers appear on the earth
where sullen gravestones once dwelled
and no fear will follow you here,
where we've lain in deer beds
...

a woman falls on the street

Skin browned to coppery tobacco
doeskin leather
...

I will look upon you-
too smooth skin
like stone bearing gems beneath
I came to you uncleanly
...

Widely I cast my net
seeking that cache of closeness
in safer shoals, a glimmer in the depths
You smiled into my heart and
...

a cup to my lips, my love
and your fingers unfolded around me
Scraping away the light
to me you are the elegant fountain
...

Your heart is Pandora's box
It is the aching red sun- I shall fabricate
wings to know I have fallen for you.
Through the portal of space and time I have sought you,
...

The clarity of the world
In an instant-
Glaring purple white glow of lightning,
Its jagged ribbon cutting the infinity of darkness
...

The view of the world
under a microscope
Is a kitchen table
Loaded to the brim with crock ware
...

My words are brittle bird bones,
crumbling beneath the weight of truth
For in this world we have all claimed many,
like a man upon a tract of ceaseless land
...

My solitary cup run over
Warm and sanctimonious draught
Too long have I tasted my own
Bitter miseries and aching pleasures.
...