"Put a lucky-seven noose around my neck
so I know it's real."

Tie me to a fence post,
Beat. Me.
Leave a buckle-ended imprint on my ***.
Call me a dull-minded imbecile.
A stupid little ******,
If you will.
Oh, take me back.
Take me as I am.
Baby, you make me feel
Like a child again.

Scrape at my scars
so I know it's real.

the old tree
has new growth,
though I don’t know why  
it has been forty fortnight
since rain, and
years ago it gave
its last bounty

perchance
some stealthy stubborn root  
found its way to a black, cool pool  
left there from earth’s fickle vibrations
or ancient monsoons, before man
hopefully planted and plowed  

now
the people pray
for heavens to open, again  
with merciful tears, to wash
our soiled skins  

too late
for the pear
to bear sweet fruit  
but not for emerald leaves
to tease the eye
with yesterday’s
sweet song

One flash, frozen in light,
The burning of her eyes
Fell my sprocketed night,
Deep in flames shudder,
All language, new, cipher,
Filmy frame, truest colours.

Born into a house of red hair
soulless people and
beer

my great grandmother is 101 and four months
and she has contracted Alzheimer’s
which means she sees those who have died before her
like her husband
two of her sisters and
four of her nine children

Her sister died just yesterday at 100 and 17 days sleeping in her bed

I was named after dead relatives

Moira for a cousin who died at 20,
before I was ever even born,
a cousin who sang like a bird
and could have been a mermaid
a beauty with straight white teeth and blonde hair
who found death after struggling with anorexia

Katherine for my great aunt who I never met
but my mother told me of her wearing sunglasses and
her sleek black car and
silky hair always tied back in red ribbons and
how she would sneak cookies to the children
holding her legs in the kitchen

I was born into an Irish house
I was born to people who have slaved their life away to make it

My great grandmother was born in Ireland in 1912
and came to America with her family when she was 10

my great grandfather was a French Canadian born in Quebec
who I was told was gentle and quiet
who smoked when he was happy or sad
and worked on houses and cars and a large family

I was born into the legacy
I was born with their blood in my veins

A love, faintly remembered, is rekindled below my weary spirit. Your acute absence has made this cliché stronger. My forbidding heart warms in the moment I smell the flame. I lose all restraint against your mysterious effect as passion overrides my shivering fear. I pull you to me desperately with a newfound innocence. I open myself over the flame with a surety never before known. You kneel intimately at my feet, removing the last of me with such a patient gentleness. My heart truly breaks at the sight of your exposed vulnerability. You light up my fair skin with your poetic hands. Tenderness, how I had forgotten your true beauty. Breathing my name into my naked shoulder, you make love to me. In response, I raise my ready body to meet yours, realizing I am lost. I cling to you, shaking, as our passion consumes all that is comprehensible. In the fading darkness, tears spill from my eyes as you stroke my neck into a false affection. I ache to have you as my own, lying with no other. The desire dies in my heaving chest as I escape this beauty once more.

Golden pulse grew on the shore,
Ferns along the hill,
And the red cliff roses bore
Bees to drink their fill;

Bees that from the meadows bring
Wine of melilot,
Honey-sups on golden wing
To the garden grot.

But to me, neglected flower,
Phaon will not see,
Passion brings no crowning hour,
Honey nor the bee.