it had just rained
and sky is beginning to get its color back
as the birds are chirping
and trees look more green through my eyes
i'm listening to 'mirrorball' on repeat
the summer has refused to leave soon
That day, I saw myself twice in the mirror
and neither one resembled the other.
One was coming toward you, and the other was turning back.
The one who came was tired, colorless;
with fear and haste, she drew lipstick across her cracked lips
to keep her distance from that ghostly face of hers,
from the face of a lost spirit.
The one who returned was the corpse of that very lost soul.
I died in your embrace—
among a hundred people standing on the bridge,
above the storks in the river,
the very moment the kingfisher dove.
Just as you pulled me toward yourself,
into your arms, though only for a brief greeting,
the seconds vanished.
On the revolving wheel, the bridge and the street and the river were dancing,
and I was giving up my life.
A drop of lipstick-red blood fell onto the collar of your leather jacket.
I laughed…
The one who returned was not like the one who had gone.
what is she doing out there? Grandmother asked the rest of us.
We peered out the window, seeing nothing but grime and dust.
What little girl? I queried, looking up and down the alley.
Only she could see this child, who looked like her sister Sally.
Sally went trick-or-treating in 1945 with her cat named Clover.
They never returned to their farmhouse in west Dover.
For years people thought they had seen her, but there was never proof.
She just disappeared said Grandmother. In one weird cloudy poof.
Was this an entity? An aberration, a ghoul, ghost, or what?
We never knew, but she always appeared once a year in our hut.
On Halloween night, along with her cat named Clover.
They never returned to their farmhouse in west Dover.
When Spring Returned
Kevin Davis 2026
When young, we waited for the days to warm,
For nights to soften, for birds to swarm.
And daylight stretched its golden hours wide,
Lifting the weight that winter could not hide.
We slowly wandered back into the sun—
To chores, to games, to laughter on the run.
No longer bound indoors or chilled outside,
As leaves unfurled and yards grew open wide.
Spring came whispering—change in every air,
With birds and insects waking everywhere.
So far removed from just a breath ago,
When frost and snow had bid us quick to go.
Now we can linger, fully present, still,
Awake to every sight beyond the hill—
To run, to laugh, to watch the world begin,
And feel new life awaken deep within.
To love the spring and all its gentle things,
To see anew, to hear the young earth sing.
So much is spoken
by this scene of the world,
a king's stubborn hatred,
a disaster upon my home from God.
Someone please tell me
the state of that battlefield -
is this a sight of a school
or graveyard of children.
They fall from the open sky
and merged into the earth,
the home of my dreams
turned back into a dream again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Morning light finds the cracks first~
those rivers mapped by laughter,
by squinting at horizons now behind me.
My knees complain like rusty hinges,
but they still bend.
My hands, spotted with time,
still remember how to write shorthand,
how to cradle a newborn’s head.
I collect aches like souvenirs,
each one a receipt for living~
the hip that remembers the fall,
the shoulder that recalls the weight
of carrying someone else.
The young sprint past me,
their bodies loud with urgency.
I linger by the lilacs,
learning the art of standing still,
the slow art of gathering shadows,
and knowing which ones to lean into,
which ones to outrun.
Aging is marvelous.
Aging is strange.
Aging is wearing a coat
that can’t be returned.
She did not fall—
She flowed.
From the breathless stars to the edge of form,
She shimmered between sound and silence,
Becoming light before becoming skin.
She walked the void barefoot,
Carving paths in places the sky forgot,
Speaking in colors the earth hadn’t learned to see.
She was music before voice,
Fire before flame,
Knowing before name.
In lives long buried in salt and smoke,
She healed the wounded with her own undoing—
A silent saint
A veiled oracle
A soul made of soft rebellion.
But in this life, she said:
“No more cages.”
Not of vows.
Not of perfection.
Not of others’ hands or gods or fears.
This time, she comes as herself.
Untamed. Unfolding.
The cosmic tide in human breath.
She dances where lines dissolve.
She speaks when the wind can’t.
She touches the sacred and names it ordinary.
She dares to be seen,
even when her voice shakes with memory.
Because this world?
It is not her prison.
It is her paintbrush.
And she—
She is the dream reborn
The priestess unveiled
The storm and the stillness
She is what happens
when a star remembers
that it is also a woman.
I thought it was love, but I guess I was blind,
You just played pretend and toyed with my mind.
I gave you my heart, my soul, every year.
Returned was your silence, your distance, and your love never here.
I thought maybe one day you’d love me the same-how foolish to know
I was your puppet on a string.
The harder I tried, the more I gave,
The deeper my heart got swept under the wave.
I built us a future and dreamed you’d be there.
But you never showed up, I looked for you everywhere.
Your love never deepened, it stayed cold and thin,
While I wore my heart raw, bleeding under my skin.
You stayed the same, while I broke and burned,
And all that I offered was never returned.
I gave you it all, every tear, every touch-
But you never once loved me, not even half as much.
I know now what I finally must do.
To love me much more and stop trying to love you.
My old house stood
by a march
surrounded by bushes and rushes.
Thrown over it
garbage and faeces
sometimes,death rodents.
Disgustful it's dwellers often came up
on the portico of my house,
Intruded inside.
Yet pitiable every time
from it heard
the distress call of a frog
grabbed by a snake.
I filled the marsh with earth
cut down the bushes,
built a new house
in place of the old one.
But true to what old folks told
after a long time
it returned to me
myself felt it's dwellers.
Then, I preferred darkness,
I not be seen
and silence
listening their clatter,
wishing the bushes
myself to hide.
I tore the filthy pages of my past,
And threw them in the stream
As memories to oblivion
I tried to cast.
But they floated back to shore,
For life's tale needs them forevermore.
Though stained,
Each page plays it's essential part,
In writting the story of my life.
She returned to the palace to exact revenge
This time she was dressed in crimson and gold
Her pet dragon Mynx accompanied her
They were ready to fight their way to the emperor
He was a diabolical, mean, nasty, horrible misogynist
A bully who thought he could treat women like boars.
She had been humiliated and bullied by this dictator
The palace saw her returning and smiled a welcome.
She felt vindicated and confident this time.
Mynx wanted to precede her, but she could not allow it.
She wanted him to see her face when she ran him through.
Her sword was hidden in the swell of her gown.
It clashed against her leg, reassuring her.
His death would be swift.
Releasing other women who had not escaped
Her fervent ultimate goal upon his demise.
Sent my friend a birthday card;
So it would not be late,
I mailed it more than one whole week
Before her special date.
Her birthday came and went and yet
She never got my card.
It had the right address and stamp,
So what could be so hard?
Today that card came back to me,
“Return to Sender” stamped.
I think the local P.O.
Really needs to be revamped.
I’ll see that friend a week from now
And hand her what I sent.
The envelope is proof, though,
Of my early-bird intent.
I never returned home from you
As I was a mere disclaimer, a mere redundancy
I never grew up more than I should
As it measured the cues, the fallen cause
As the day approached the twilight hue
As the grace casted the slender shadow across the forest
From the balcony I saw the dispersing clouds
Those once loved me in the depth, perhaps
I never returned home from your supplicating lips
As there was the beginning of the death, instead.
Enemies to the left of us
Enemies to the right
No choice but vigilance
day and night
Yet our most powerful enemy
lives in our hearts
He teases and tempts us
then tears us apart
He’s sent by the Almighty
as a test every day
Until we defeat him
all other enemies
will have their way
So let us trust Heaven
the One High Above
Return to Him what He gifts us
Let us gift Him our Love
A dear come back, a goat returned
I swore I'd leave no stone unturned
I would search on glade and forest
And hope that God would do the rest
April 1, 2024, SPC, PST
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