Shadow Dancing


Be the howling moon
or the quiet wind.

Be Orion and his
starlight shield.

Be the road with no
street signs.

Be waylaid plans;
the lost map.

Arrive on the sidewalk
without knowing where
you are going.

Be the lightning bug.
The crickets,
telling secrets to
the air.

Be the couple walking
into the privacy of
nightfall,

Be their watch. Be
their hands.

Be the cafe always
open late, slide
into the flow of
the coffee.

Be the noodle slip
off the novice’s
chopsticks. The
soup disappearing
in the bowl

Be the siren in the
distance, the choir
music filtering
through the door of
St. Michael’s

Be the
patrons leaving the
bar.

Be the drink in their
glass. The holy water
they swim in.

Turn left.
or
Turn right.

Be the narrow streets,
the high beams on a
city bus. The cab called
they waved off.

Be the cracks in
the sidewalk, the steep
stairs leading 5 floors up.

Be the bright apartment
and the glow from the
lamp light coming through
the window. Want to be
that glow. See two bodies
sways.

Be the shadow behind the
shade.

-Tosha Michelle

The Last of It

image

I’m always sure enough of
your rain to walk into it.

I wander, and your downpour
wanders.

You light the way
with laments and oxygen.

By nightfall the wind has
scattered you so that the
stars can peak through.

By dawn, you are the
darkness that has passed
through my eyes.

I see your shadow
stenciled in by the sun.

There’s a translucence
between us, as memories
vaporize, steaming away
the last of the rain.

-Tosha Michelle

The Awakening 


No longer content with the
winter life and its flannel
sleep. Self and it’s terms
finally meet

She wipes away
the frost from her soul
And sees spring illuminated
beyond the cold.
Sunlight the trinket she’s
always possesed
misplaced for awhile
shine from within.
Her sepia world
long deprived of green
become vibrant and
alive again.

She walks away in blue
with plenty of heart
by the light of her own
eyes, no longer needing
to find it in another.
The view defined by her,
and her alone.

-Tosha Michelle

Music for Friday 

A quote and a song for this lovely Friday.

“Nothing had changed. I was the stupid one again. I was the girl who never understood who she was to people.”
-Carol Rifka Brunt, Tell the Wolves I’m Home

And my musical selection. Wanna slow dance? 😜 I will step on your toes. Have a listen and a wonderful weekend. ❤️ Oh, and look y’all, another pair of new eyeglasses 😮

Fallen


It began when I transcribed
the temporal glint in his eyes
as light. Content with my
my own imaginings.

Quuck to accept my own deceit.
Hungry for a time only for desire
sliced in two.

I failed to noticed when he didn’t
take the knife
And how the sky dimmed as it gave
into longing.

The bruised fruit pulled from the branch
left to adorn the grave.
Now I collect the seeds that
remain in a mason jar

My heart painted blue.
My hands stained from
the pickings.

-Tosha Michelle

The Remains

As the leaf whirls across
the the mercurial landscape
The wind sounding like
something injured.
Don’t chase it. Let it go.
The monochrome sky
knows lost comes
with each season’s transformation
None of us spared in the end
Why fret so?
Put on your wool coat
wander in the leaves that refuse
to vacate the ground
Make this a day best remembered not
for what has gone but for
what remains

-Tosha Michelle