Molten core

A stillness
waits in the space between thought,
in the world supporting the world, a suspension
where I stand beneath myself in a breadth of hesitation.

This lacuna contains no direction,
only color and texture painting the rhythm of life.
Lines, residual centuries, cracks of innovation gone to wear,
puddled water that seeped from my ancestor’s pores

returned again and again
an answer to this pause –
flash color night stain lingering depthless blue, a breathless rise
in my chest. A momentary knowing the illusory reality,

complexities of here and now revealed in layers of what isn’t and won’t be.
I am there in the water without looking, here three dimensional but a reflection nonetheless.
Comfort is thought, but in this moment I am small dangling from rock,
reborn,

insignificant in the azure
and copper road runoff, grey stain hatching limits and sky I am a curt cut where a curb could just as well exist.

Prosaic, like this choice in route,
in orientation –
can I wait until Friday to pick up the bitter greens, grained
bread and butter, and other less essentials?

Molten core

Tonight I dream in color for the first time since my husband’s death.
Images surface like oil in the waste water pooling in a long gone lot,
liquid substances that should bloom into display and swirl, but instead, disjointedly
lifted from the static of an old black and white television. Familiarly not an organic matter.

Absence of sound.
Just sensation, beat and pulse.
No startle when I fall inferior to the earth and hang,
inclining towards the core.

Molten iron saturates
my tongue.
It is magnetic,
the pull towards rest.