Fire
It starts in the duodenum
Dilly-dallying innocent little girl don’t you know you’re in
Brambled thickets sticking in thin skin
Kindling for your pyre.
Kick those scrawny snarling legs
cat fight little wolf
those teeth sharpen quick but not enough.
Loops through the belly button retro-endo-up inside
warm coals hissing in anticipation
one more phrase
Spark and I’ll blaze pouring out of my
ear canals
Sop down drop through the piriformis to the heels
Stomp the wrongness out of you
and sip the wine spoiled juices make.
Earth
Steady is the hand that
holds others up when prostrate
I am tipped skyward in prayer
to a faith built on shaken foundation.
Immutable, that’s what you are
steadfast, stubborn ox
knows everything of service and nothing of self.
Dumb beasts forge blindly
But battering rams were built to break
Charging head-first, loosing horns
Have they noticed that the most rigid structures
Undergo the most extreme destabilization?
Air
You sailed across peaks
Running along mountain ridges in whisper white stockings
to find me
Huddled in the feather light embrace of another.
How do you reckon Little lungs swell with no training
While large lungs stutter?
Breathe to blow
Fill the spaces between ribs with
Bubblegum bubbles
Shrink and stretch each breath.
Tripping through hair and dancing along the creases you left
Dented in my palms.
Go where the wind takes you, they say
But I am rooted in soil.
Water
Arms wide open, I ran towards, but she barreled across my outstretched fingertips
Crying, I asked why, she
wiped tiny streams from my cheeks and told me to try again.
It’s a fine line between float and sink, there were moments when I thought we were
finally working
But tides change and so do you.
Did you like how I looked, with coins adorning my eyelids, chains nestled in my bedrocks?
I will teach my children how to swim, to paddle with currents.
You changed so I did too.
And I did too.
