the sky grew back with clouds

the sky grew back with clouds

by William Bortz

cover/back cover design by Nam Ho

image by Chelsie Bortz
the sky grew back with clouds © 2018 by William Bortz. Part of the
chapbook series Make Sure You Breathe Today All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America First Printing, 2018
allow the seasons to unfurl your bones
—removals

if you follow the crease in

the hills you eventually come
upon an oasis—a creek of quiet
I often dip my feet

in my week-old footprints
now a mud-bath
there is so much peace
the day following a flood

the ground tremors with

full-body heaves and chimes
sing out on the porch
and afternoon is heard creeping

across the warped wood flooring

laid unevenly in the kitchen
immediately following a hearty breakfast
I wear my boots like a peak is howling

and I am aiming to match its pitch

when in fact the days are beginning to
wear on me and I am still learning
how to forgive
—the morning light that holds me

I want to have
such a deep love for every
morning
that its soft, vulnerable light
drips off my lips
until night comes
between us
—it is a quiet afternoon and I am mourning

most often, I am fed

by the dew on warming

mornings when the night kicked

and screamed before stomping
off to its room, allowing the

sun to have a moment of rest before

the dripping heat began asking far
too much from all of us—I have

never once gone thirsting for more

than an afternoon. as long as I pay
mind to which hour of the

day seems to be the most

lost within in its own
mourning. summer

cries so gently and

it has such soft hands
that keep me so

well
—my grief wilts only to bloom again

pull the sky to

your mouth
let it absorb your grief
let dusk plant roses
in the beds of your cheeks
roll the moon along
the back of your neck
become soft
—upon being asked where I would go to hide

a bit of sand
an entire hole water couldn’t reach
I am a seized catapult
I am a palette of needing

every color I see I try and paint my skin with

there is a cloud, somewhere
very high up above
out of reach from where a violent dusk bleeds
I would go there

I would enjoy the silence

I would taste the flapping of a bird’s wing
I would hold the sun up for my mother
who cannot hold herself up
I would prepare a field for my wife
full of flowers for her to run through
I would be taller, probably

I would look down on a sea

and not want it to swallow me
if you feel the sun that close
I don’t think you would melt
I think you would evaporate

I think the wind

would carry you to another cloud
above another wounded dusk
where someone’s palms
are already full of light
and the only language is breathing

no, the only language is a flat color

 that extends a few breaths
beyond the moon
I would surely go to someplace
where I am not made of a currency
where I won’t be torn open and spilled
like oil in a crawling sea
where the only thing you can buy is seconds

I would see this person

and their face would be light
they would have a continent in their mouth
they would feed me the fruit of what it grows
there would be a sweetness
that would outlast the moon
there would be a gentleness I could maybe bring back
and wrap around the shoulders of someone trembling

I would go someplace where

when I was done and I was stronger
I could bring something back for someone
who is tired of being weak, as I was, as I still am

I am a forest of whimsy
I am the moonbeam meeting the sea
I am a rogue wave sinking nothing
every bone keeping me up is etched with longing
there must be a place where nothing hurts
—note

I keep mountains on
my tongue for
when I’m feeling weak
for the days I
can hardly stand
to remind myself
how well the clouds
wear like a shawl
to remember
most days
I am strong
 —a lot about undoing

how many things have broken

in your hands as you hold them
ask the blushing night

how many stars have burst in

its palm. I have been thinking a lot
about undoing. I lose a tooth
and gain a phantom pain. I lose a
brother and gain a memory

I truly should have less. I have

pulled so many petals the soil
asked me not to touch. loss always
gives back. loss always keeps our

hands full
—in loss

I fall in love easily on scarlet evenings

I keep the stars on my tongue
until they pull themselves away
to the place they go to evaporate
I can’t imagine where that is
but I have lost much
to that kind of
chaos
 —sundance

dusk paints the part of the

sky furthest from me magenta
and I wonder when I will
learn to say goodbye
so beautifully

what I know is that

watching something depart that
once held you is a type
of silence you never
forget

I am so fervently idle
I am a kaleidoscope of wanting
I am every shade of yellow I once was and am no longer
I am the sum of everything that has washed me
in absence

what I know is how to wear malcontent

and sweat uncomfortably in it until morning and wanting so much to be
bigger
that I become so small I am nothing

if you are waiting

for something to come and find you
you will be waiting and waiting

until your bones fade back into the blackness that shaped them
—in trust

I try my hardest
to catch clouds in
my mouth—to taste
their grace and know
a glimpse of being
content in not knowing
where you are
being taken
 —God keeps me in his mouth

you are a sanctuary of stars

a spectrum of things seen but not held
you are the beginning of many beautiful things
but not yet folded into the middle of your tongue
there is an entire life that will hold you
dip your palms into a patient river
and take many drinks
and drink until you are exhausted
share the contents of your lungs
and know you are small
let honey drip from your lips, &
love where your feet sink into soil
know home is where you are kept
God is the rain, tell me I am loved
as flowers are kept
tell me the light will take me in
gently
oh so gently
—a waxing moon paints me blue

is the moon not

disturbed by all the
sound spilled out into
the night
the incessant wailing
the restless stirring from
weary and wanting bones
how mighty a grace
to be only in the company
of suffering and remain
a light
 —nutrients

all I have built / stands taller in my head / soil tends to absorb more than /
nutrients / I had always envisioned my father / broad-shouldered, hair-lipped,
powder on his sour teeth / in fact, he was a plume of perspiration in transit / I
saw either his departure / or his brief stay / unsure what he took / but
definitely didn’t leave more / than droplets on the parts of my face / the sun
rarely touches / where is the altar I pray at / in order to become the astute
definition / of a man / I believed, one will become a man / upon seeing his
father cry once / and never forgetting that one while strong / can also feel /
and feel to the point of becoming a body of water / that swallows young boys
/ and unclenching fists / and leaving a mark of presence / and I am much
taller / before you meet me / I assure you
—as I want, the sky paints with fire

I pull the night

from my skin
cutting out stars with
my teeth to place
inside. I wish for
more or less—either way
the sky remains
dancing and I lie
uncomfortably
still
 —give me dusk and I’ll strangle the color from it

morning peels my arms open

preparing my posture to embrace
only the sun knows how badly
I need another warm body to

drink. how lonely it is to

feed and feed and feed and
never be fed yourself
I know little of that

pain. what I know is

grasping so tightly all
the light sneaks out the
back, hungry for

air. what I know is most

things starve to death
comfortably in our
arms
—even the pine exhales its sweetness

be gentle
as if the night has
never once held on
for too long
as if the bottomless
sky never swallowed
anything dearly loved
fill your mouth
with what is serene
even the tethered moon
swims gracefully in
the black
 —a haunting

I feel the dirt crunch

beneath my feet as I walk
on ground that was
tilled by hands that were attached
to bodies that were forcibly
removed from this land
there is a sweetness in the
air that fills my lungs
that colors my blood a shade
brighter to match the flowers
tender fingers have cultivated on
a ground that was once a home
and is now a field that
someone somewhere is undoubtedly wishing
they could feel beneath
their bare feet
—and where is the horizon

anxiety isn’t so much

the feeling of being lost at sea
but believing you have to
fit the whole thing
in your stomach
—abandonment

mother’s hands
a bird’s nest—jostled
potholes warmed
by car tires
a sort of chaos

between fingers

mother’s mouth
a moist cave entrance
a sort of evaporation
a cool place
my name does not

live there
—again

the morning
fears nothing
but not being
tasted
 —honest

I give my naked body

to the sky and it
washes me

it does not ask what

I know or what I
do not

it shows me how good

it is to become
empty

to make room for an

uncomfortable warmth
for hands

to hold me. for teeth

to meet my skin and
not break it

it shows me how to
become open and remain
whole
—every palm holds milk

drink in wonder
let it fill
your throat
every breath is
a sky
that should not
be absent of
stars
 —river

I have turned my mother’s body

into a church I attend often
—kneeling in the spaces between
the pews crammed into her ribcage

everything I whisper in the

dark points to the time before
anything lived in my lungs

peel back my skin

and see I am just a river
that once bled into
an ocean

I am what I have been given

—waning

only the moon knows

how often I repeat
your name while
you’re away
 —what an infinity: what an expanse

at the end
I want the list of places
I felt the most alive
to be unreadable

as it stretches out
into an infinity
—peppered with far-off stars
I want to walk its length
and feel it radiate as
it guides me to someplace

quiet

I want to know little

of comfort
—for that is what calls
me to close my eyes
and settle
—the current to my wave

be the stars
in my silence
swelling moonlight
through thin blankets
of cloud cover
the slow breathing
just before sleep
rest for my
bones
 —medal

If I listen
I hear my lungs
working harder than
my hands
I want to see blood
p o o l i n g
in the corners of
my nailbeds
I want to earn and
fight
for every breath
— the root

the days continue

to come and come
and leave stardust
on my tongue and
all my heart does
is beat and beat
and I don’t even
have to ask it to
 —birthday

have you once felt inspiration from something ceasing / once, I saw a bird
collapse out of the blueness it was once kept in / it plummeted, in silence, and
I thought how / nice it would be to find rest on this afternoon / I am mostly
enthralled in newness / when I am chained to something / unmoving / I baked
my mother a cake on her 57th birthday / because I believed it would be her
last and that her own hand / would bring the sort of bitterness to her mouth /
that her heart could not survive / each birth- day before / we were sure the
call / the one that echoes / would ring out / ironically, as a morning bird /
greeting a new day / and it would be new / in the way fresh absence swallows
sunlight and time and half of every / breath we take / I never thought of her as
a / bird / but as the sky that once / held me / I am the bird / and no one has
ever made me / a nest / not even for one night / not even on my / birthday
—you become a drip

find what calms you

and drink from it daily
let it simmer on
your teeth but do

not call it your tongue

I am a tremor, after all of
this—unsturdy
ground for even

myself. if you drink from

an oasis
you, yourself, do not
become an oasis
 —mustard seed

if you listen closely

to the air just before it rains
it sounds like arms reaching
to hold you

how I thirst for that

kind of worship
how I fear morning
will forget my name

how I am haunted daily

by the absurdity of
my smallness
how do I ever become more

and then, again

I dream beneath a swelling
pelt of stars on black fur
and a yawning sun

stretches its arms over an

exhausted horizon and
my heart is calm because
the sky grew back
with clouds

and like magic, I unfold

into something shimmering
with more skin
into something just beginning
into something

small
—water everything that grows quietly in your chest

when was the last

time you ran joyfully
through the rows of
wildflowers reaching out
from the bones of
your ribcage

when was the last time

your breath tasted
sweet
 —becoming more

what a good thing to be young and to call the creek behind your home
‘brother’ and to be fed by the same

mouth and to spend the most fragile summer nights wondering how one
becomes mighty
and when -if ever- we learn

how to swim in the bigness we will eventually become. will we be able to

remember how to make it back home

and in the stretching light of morning we will feast

together on bright, breathing yolk and feel a little bit

closer to calling ourselves strong

—soft

today I will look out

at the morning sun
clear and soft
and believe it is
trying to teach me
something
—awaiting the cold front

I adore those tall, summer clouds

their towering presence; their

late evening swell, like the second

wind of my liquored
brother running toward me

with his fumbling arms

outstretched with a toothy grin
drenching his face with light

I miss the heat of my mother’s

breath as she spoke to me between
sips of coffee. the swirling

white, curious as a pearl

in a dark sea
just beneath the still of surface

forgive me for how quickly I speak

every ripe kernel of expanding air
sprouts a name in my mouth

and I want to say them all out loud

at once
—I lay still until the afternoon swallows me

grass grows and I lie quiet

remorseful for my lack of
effort—leaving the birds with
such a lonely view. before
long, tired clouds will open
their hands and drop them. the
petals I plucked will have curled
by then, with my stomach,
my knees, the horizon, and
everything else that cannot
maintain for too long
 —wonder

I try my best to not

leave deep footprints
behind me everywhere
that I go but lately I
have become so weighted
down with wonder

how can the hills hold the

brittle morning sun so carefully
yet contain the stars as they frolic
from horizon to horizon
the night sky is so graceful in how
it holds us all in its sweet mouth

in a lot of ways, I was born in the

creek behind my childhood home
I go back often to taste the
colors of my continent to be
reminded of how well grassroots
fill the space between my fingers

there is gold in the soil

and I am always digging
—sunbeam

I take soil
and bury it beneath
the soft skin
of my tongue
I open my mouth
only to let sunbeams in
I speak only growth
 —summer storms

sometimes on humid evenings

we go on short walks
and drink in the air
her fingers swim in
the sea of my palm

and the sky becomes so

envious of how full I am
it closes itself with clouds
and shouts all night—weeping

and in the black, there

we are together
and there is no time
to acknowledge
much else
—patience

I am learning to be
gentle
to be patient
to not light fires
when I cannot see
the stars
—sacrifice/enduring

because when something begins to lean

retreating from nothing to a greater nothing
everything in us tells us to, but we do not allow it to break
apathy is a weapon that should not be held in both hands
to carry what needs held and become stronger for it
how beautiful a production
endurance is holding another’s blood to keep it warm

autumn delivers a low-hanging moon and so we

gather all the scattered reeds resting on top of gravel
anything left behind becomes food or fetter
in excess, I become the weakest I have ever been
no wind carries just one needing voice
there is still so much space to bloom
—acknowledgements

to my wife—always, with love

thanks to Nam Ho for your help and friendship
thanks to Horizon Line Coffee for the continuous support
thank you to the presses that first gave a home to a few of the pieces in
this chapbook
to my workshop
thanks to those who call me to be present and to listen
 —recognitions/publications

‘river’ was first published by Terror House Magazine on July 4th, 2018.

‘birthday’ was first published by Empty Mirror on June 15th, 2018.

‘becoming more’ was first published by Folded Word on June 6th, 2018.

—
find William on social media:
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twitter: @BNwillbortz
facebook: www.facebook.com/AuthorWilliamBortz/