By Audrey Howitt
Tear Up Your To-Do Lists and Just Sit
build tiny nests pull sunlight toward you nurture those mercies you tie close to you under business suits nestled deep in tender folds here is the secret-- if you take one stick fold it close to another you can bend yourself into them find the space between a stilled ocean under every breath you take
Terms of Agreement
We sit outside, talking to silverware, used and not. The forks, about money and knives, about time deficits. Spoons are another issue, their inclination is to roll on tables, laughing or find a nose perch. We can’t take them seriously. Our discussion is again, about your absence, my loneliness. An unbargained-for curve. I watch the chef fillet the fish— pull the whole of the skeleton out, deftly, like it was nothing. The separation, clean. My hand circles a soup spoon, a reflex, to catch tiny bones. There is nothing clean about it.
When Acceptance is All That is Left
I learned to shut the gate early in life, though I hate to admit it wind carries me through slats, felling feelings slotted among last winter’s kindling which gathers new stories viscous words perch on the laundry line wait for sun to dry them maybe then they can be heard again nestled here against my lips, they wait, gain gravity, a poultice when I can’t open my mouth
Audrey Howitt lives and writes poetry in the San Francisco Bay Area. When not writing, she sings classical music and teaches voice. She is a licensed attorney and psychotherapist. Ms. Howitt has been published in: Purely Lit: Poetry Anthology, Washington Square Review, Panoply, Muddy River Poetry Review, Total Eclipse Poetry and Prose, Chiaroscuro-Darkness and Light, dVerse Poets Anthology, With Painted Words, Algebra of Owls and Lost Towers Publications.
Academy of the Heart And Mind 