To Build a Spine, a Column of Gold

I keep pulling words from this memory
Of you and using them to build a house
to keep out my mothers ghost
and all the weight she carries with her.

It’s a modest room with a pointed roof,
Like an overturned boat.

Somewhere to get closer to my bones,
to see what I can pull from inside
and spread thin on white paper,
hold it up to the moon
see what truths shine through.

Something has changed.

Under my skin the architecture has shifted.
Points of light long disconnected
now have new shafts to shine through.
A shift of mass at my center.
A weight – long buried
pushed up and out
burns hot and bright.

A neutron star spinning out radio waves of morse code.

A lighthouse holding a supernova.

You touched it that night you wrote me a love song.
It’s been overflowing ever since.
Shooting out from under my fingernails,
earseyesnosethroat.
It’s flooded everything.

I had not seen your hands
so busy under my skin,
guiding my light, coaxing the weight
igniting the flame that unleashed this flood.
In it’s wake and my lack of sight I pushed you away.
Thought we’d sail easier without me
slowing you down, rocking your boat,
I swung from the nearest star
to sandy ground being washed from under my feet
by these torrents pouring out of me.

Now alone in this flood I roll this house over
and set out to sea.
I’ll live there as long as I can.
I’ll catch salmon and dress myself in their
silver skin.
I’m good with a knife.
I can strip them of thier pink flesh in two strokes,
leaving just a head spine and tail cartoon

I hang them from the floor to dry.
The bones I grind with my teeth
spit back out on the ceiling.

Spread it thin.

Make paper from it.

Cut it into strips.

Roll it tight and wrap it in silver scales.

Build disks.

Open my chest and bake them in this star
til silver turns gold.

Stack them one atop the other push them inside behind heart and lungs thread them through with guitar strings that my golden spine might harmonize with this house,
every thought becoming a note.

When I think of you it sounds beautiful.

I imagine you softly swaying to the music
of me.

I’ll make you a blanket of song
to keep warm through the winter,
a waltz to curl up with.
I’ll ask the moon to shine bright
That we may both find our way.
I’ll beam this message for you across the night sky,
an apology for my lack of spine, blind heart,
all the damage they’ve wrought
and how much I wish you were here
burning brightly with me.

Two stars locked in orbit around each other,
singing songs to the night.