Brink

Petals flayed by ice,
foliage like scales
the rose and rainbow trout
shining in brittle dawn.
the ice cracks
mud egresses the crusty white ground,
a linea nigra on the belly of the earth.

a sign of two fish coil the frozen branches
locked in infinity,
crossing paths
from the melancholic cold of an east coast winter
to the wakeful but well rested
Spring
unfurls like curling horns,
the lion, the lamb, the ram,
mythical effigies on an in-your-face
stroll along the riverbed
putting 30 degree dreams to sleep,
the world turning on its back and waiting
for new breath to create a breeze.

the quail came like comedians
or chameleons
turning towards each other and turning colors,
turning tricks, turning water into wine,
or something sacrilege before the 3-day rise.
the march was mad and wild,
showering a birth that
rolled open the foliage
warmed the brittle dawn
erupted the white ground
with metamorphic molten humming, quietly,
under the mount for months;
it stirred, fluttering in the smoky mist and pools,
readying to light up the night with a scintillating cry,
tender and unequivocally human.


e. chayes

All that you already are

for all that i am, all that i was, and all that i'm going to be.


Your little feet press
a rolling wave,
noting with one move
that inexplicable brought by night's sea.

Say hello to the universe.

Mommy has a purpose.
more than the million steps
she's walked to the sand--
intent on her breath,
awe in her guise.

What your eyes will shine.
brightness of immeasurable moons,
the reflection and tug
of tides of my being.
May too, they twinkle like daddy's
but capture the light all their own.

With one blink, our world will turn.

Mine has turned on its axis,
water merging into land;
each continent of experience
shifting and colliding
for your soul in my belly.
your golden molten of Ipseity
swirling in cradling palms
until you're ready to sip
and emerge from water.


e. chayes
(erica chayes wida)

This is a day for poetry

i woke, the air
yawning frost on the window,
round underbelly making ripples in red
cotton sheets. A warm orb
like neon petals and natural light,
cream awakening and kisses in flannel.

You are safe,
you are loved,
i am so magnetic already.

Your silken hands press,
we are weaving you like worms,
and we will always be your roots,
whenever you need them.

Your heart looked like a butterfly
the first day I saw you--
expanding your wings
and pumping little pulses
of magic and reality.
You are so small;
my sockets melted salty bliss.
You flutter in me and I feel you,
each and every night at 9:54.
You flap your feet,
do you like when mommy writes,
do you hear the music?
"Flutterby" means so much more.


e. chayes

Pendulum

there's light beaming from within,
where the little thumped.
but today there's fog,
a morning of black tea and bruised pears.

little kindness
where a man spits on the street
and the reaction, unusually,
tames the green light with disgust.

from what inside this feeling trembles?
weeping humid,
blanched in vinegar and sun.
the teabag gathers maternal molecules
and specs of worried dust.
the feeling is above the womb,
the chest constricts and bosoms swell,
like a wave i wanna curl into
and be carried away with.

chords are spinning into autumn,
falling before fall.
the trees are not what i need.
i don't need oxygen; i need air.
salty, salty
air.

craving the wave
and not to be saved,
i don't need saving.
it's others then and under
pressure. this hot air balloon heart.
i'm dangling from a basket of woven hair.
i'm swallowing the poison without it
even being fermented.


e. chayes

A Day at the Beach in August

I had reached into the pockets of a yogi,
ayurvedic medicine

A wave
tagging to another,
shifts into something big,
better than separate.

The swell,
vertebrate curling,
thrusts surfers from its insides
spilling microcosms, plankton;
head and neck and tongue.

the waves thrash
the waves explode
the waves breathe and breed;
coagulations of mermaid blood
turn to white tips
and reign the sea.

We all fall on land.
sediment and sand,
our legs bound by seaweed
our limbs reaching
for the peach pitted sun.

Foam is rabid from a wave's mouth.
It is hungry to see,
and blind to swim.
We climb into the barrel
and drink salt.
We starve ourselves
for the quiet pumping of silence
within the sea's ever-growling tummy.

A wave crashes alone,
relinquishing easily
itself to the shore.


e. chayes

Igneous Lavandula

Ladle your lids
with this white-lily mystic.
Fall deeply, follow.
The ground's weeping

viridian blades.
Glow worms gnaw softly
the zaftig trees, and

16 moments before night 

is always.

Canyons curve and slope,

the red sediment stamps our feet

because we're turned sideways

and flying.

Humidity sighs.
we're Non-existent.

i emerge from the mountain.

i emerge from the deep water belly

of my mother's womb.

i blast into fields of lavender and sage,

only to hang them dry with hot breath

from my lioness insides.

i am the spark tiptoeing on fire.
i am ripping off the covers
to coruscate
on wooden floorboards,
on wednesday mornings.
i am electric in eight feet of snow:
want, calm, and chaos.


e. chayes