5. Another Word For: Love
a small poetry collection
Dedicated to those before:
car harmonies
dew on the blanket
the paper bag
truth
country karaoke
letters written
a long hike
the queen of herbs
stories we met
the beige of desert 
everywhere, you are
how the sky won’t release the guilt
how the earth crackles as it wakes
the sheen of sun on the dark curl
the oil of the rosemary sprig
the stain of vermouth on metal
the site of the goosebump in its swell
the melt of lemon zest on the lip
your mountainous body - the level of it -
your shoulder blades raised under the sheet
to summit with the river of my arm
heat of heart emanates between slants of sunrise remember the last one together, humid among horse shit the flies on the honey how we saw three hares questioned if they were once someone’s pet like you to me height of the day rising and the wave on our heels a rush hour mountain’s huff, to be slow so radical, the honest of me in the story of eased steps high horse on the horizon holds memory and the pedestal rots under our bloated age
paint chips
in the front office
she asked over her sunglasses
if the likeness of our eyes
helped them believe
she wasn’t kidnapping me
her victorious red lips
in memory the rouge slippers
blush dawn on a version of us before
dust settles on the box they live in
while the room dreams coral reef walls
I love her like this
I do and I do not 
Cinquain
heart bless
watch you love in
fluid quake, ripple from far
landscape - clutch bleeding scarlet - a
quiver 
in motion
while I kiss the lips of the dogwood,
you do not watch, you
lick every sun soaked eye,
walk in stride, bring not-all
while I try the beginning again, start the
story motion-sick, a crease of
exhaustion in the remnant heat of sadness,
again, pointing. 
For J.
1.
The tart release - how my fingertips would claw into you. I do not want you to feel the edges. Instead, I do not touch with fervor. Just small daggers of a past in the whorl.
2.
I do not tell you when our bodies are close and your hot breath holds a secret to my neck how I want to take your delicate pinky and hold it pointe, graceful. I want it, in its delicacy, to be the entire weight of what could be. A blessing.
3.
The window of the front room stays open to hold the promise of return. I reassure myself from the ledge; I do not beg for sight. The horizon holds beauty in that you can never reach the end nor grasp the way its colors dance. It is in this way I tell you.
4.
A ladybug lands on my shoulder and before I blow it away, so close, I am reminded how I love.
5.
Tokens that live in the locket: the edge of the photobooth strip with my bangs askew and you holding my chin into the kiss, the letter you wrote on the mountain folded 10 times to fit, the scent of you on a dried flower petal, the sound of the floorboards when you arrive home, the impossibility of this.
6.
To make sense of your gone, I weave in a mistake. The presence of your absence filled with tangled stitch - I clean up the mess of myself before you come home, hide the delicate seams.
7.
You love yourself without desperation. How you allow yourself to be palpable and perceived. How so many others love you and do not forget.
8.
I tell you because it has never not been true. I tell you because it is a way I can tell myself. I tell you because when I speak it, the world alights. I feel the rush of sun resting. I tell you. I tell you. 
If you’re interested in receiving a copy of these poems in a chapbook format — please reach out! I plan to make 5 copies to distribute to anyone who would like one. The chapbook includes small description of the handwork that went into this project as well as a writing prompt notecard & bag of synonyms for the word ‘love.’ Thanks for reading :)
Obviously I would love one of your chapbooks, sweet Shea. Thank you for sharing these. I love reading about the world through your eyes.