The Modern Siren

It’s taken me years to get here

to write more than passing thoughts,

to weave words like weathered cloth

in a room freshly painted.

Refurbished, and delicate.

To know when to drop out,

when to drop in.

To inhale fright,

Exhale hysteria.

To move a sentence just so,

until it fits perfectly

between two stubborn words

and then howl upon the summit.

My last name alone sounds the alarm.

The Shelleys and Plaths of the world

mystic sirens,

still emerging from the dust, stardust.

whence they came.

Winning Pulitzers

from the belly of the whale

(some from the grave).

The mind’s affliction

so often, is its greatest gift.

Once, lured sailors.

Now, it beckons editors.

Shifting the shape

of what we dare call wellness.