Notes on Becoming

What this world could use is more windows. 
Anything to let the light in, really.  A way 
to sweep past the darkening glass and
Gleam. 

Double-paned affairs reflecting back the 
strange house of my heart
flung open to the lure of impossible 
things.

Hungry for illumination, I reach past the 
burnished sky, blaze trapped 
reflections in a flip-side flash 
reproduction,

Meeting my mirror image match before
a weak and wavering sun beckons 
Alice out of Wonderland to consume the lonely
dark.

20 Seconds

I’ve counted to twenty
so many times now
that my sink overflows
with slippery numbers

20 second songs
20 second prayers-laments
20 second “notes to self”
laughter
blank stares
angry words

tears
20 second promises to myself
and everyone else
until the numbers
form an equation
of hope enough
for the day.

I’m beginning to feel my own delicious smallness,
the kind I used to think about
when looking at cracks in the sidewalk
or beckoning holes at the base of brick walls.
The kind of minuteness that slips
through any prison bars.
Are cocoons made to rise like yeasted bread?
Are bellies formed of the space
between Mars and Jupiter?
I want tiny finger pads for scampering
up stucco walls.
These short arms have
never hugged a cactus, but see
that saguaro over there?
I really want to try.