swifts  &  s l o w s · a quarterly of crisscrossings

moving both ways
Kathleen Florence

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Old lady yoga

I joke
scanning the floor of people over thirty posing corpse
wondering if, and what if and what about
hush now

and be a rock the size of your palm at the bottom of a stream
water moving both ways
all ways around you looking up
see that light?
now sink deeper into everything changing
you are not a rock but for now you can be
feeling the flow of moment passing you by
if you can sink deeper and let the mouths of the hungry
suck your surface for substance then maybe you can be a poet
but if you are found with your head in the oven
don’t expect bread to rise, baby doll,
the voice message said
like a first line in a new play
where the narrator adds
every moment is a first kiss
if you let it

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Kathleen Florence writes poetry for the stage. She puts down words to perform them up, monologue sing speak and move story sound around. Kathleen has performed poems in spaces high and low including Beyond Baroque, Poet’s House, Players Club, Le Poisson Rouge, Versefest and Tarragon Theatre.