'Votives'
Ceramic
Juniper Yun Kruser
2013

Arizona

you wear sadness

like a crown of 

calla lilies and bird skulls.

your desert moon face 

cookie-cutter 

in milky way memories.

you know,

the sun's bright here

and the birds sing

and you think of 

dead mothers and how

someone poured acid

on a little girl's face.

the grand canyon

sentences, too deep

and too wide.

incomprehensible

Psyche at the cliff,

loving nowhere.

'Heritage'
Wood Sculpture Study
Placed in Union Art Gallery
Milwaukee Fall 2012


goodbye fullness

remember? the time you took my sweatshirt and wiped away the dead mayflies on your headlights.

your stance and shadow from behind the dash murky, yet as memorable as mother’s funeral.

like the new moon finds a hiding place in the umbra of the Earth, her face finds refuge under mine.

do you see it now, I wonder? With clearer eyes, high beams disengaging the night-flies at your lashes.

do you hate it? My nose a tombstone, my lips an entrance to the crypt, teeth picket fences saying no,

you may not have her back, you only have me, half of her, a half-moon half submerged in night.

I only shine half as bright, lighting the path enough to frighten, making anxious on what lies ahead.

goodbye fullness, I said long ago, while you still wait for lunar landings, I wait for the sun.