"Frames" - new poetry by Cristina M. R. Norcross

Even a house of mortar and brick can have spirit. What would happen if that new house you bought could speak to you? What secrets would it reveal? What stories could the painting you inherited years ago share with you?

Let's see ...


FRAMES

Seeing out from a cave of light,
a cresting spirit rests on all four corners
and waits.

This day cannot contain thriving,
wanting, or persistence.
It ends with a hovering full moon –
low and yellow.

I hang on the wall you never look at,
slightly tilted,
wanting to be touched –
just left of the center that will not hold.

Trace and retrace the hairline fractures on the ceiling.
Someone lived here before.
Shadows of being remain,
as you fill the space with aura and light.

Once this living room swelled with post-dinner conversations,
meandering, bubbling outbursts of shared humor –
shared loss.
Memory thick with images floated high in the air
and lined the walls with a viscosity,
that one person sitting in the corner
just could not bear.

This is your dwelling now.
Fill it.
Shape it.
Stop hiding behind your frame –
so contained.
These eyes are your eyes.
Use them.


Cristina M. R. Norcross
Copyright 2009
(from the collection, Still Life Stories, with Jennifer Peña)