Lackluster hillside
A many, ideal sheep sleeps
out of jewelry

I will feed you love
from my paper cup hands
everytime you are starved
for sunny days.

I will put your frozen hands
in my pre-warmed woolen gloves
everytime you may fall ill
from the chill outside our doorstep.

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it----

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a **** lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
0 my enemy.
Do I terrify?----

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else,
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart----
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash ---
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there----

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

Tell all the monsters under my bed
that they needn't tuck me in at night
anymore.
I made a promise to grow.
I'll grow the way mama did
back when her hair was brown not silver.
Tell my monsters I grew out
of  chewing my nails,
picking at my skin,
***** fueled nightmares,
and a tobacco stained tears.
Tell them that I am growing out
of the fear footsteps in the dark
light up in my rabbit shaped heart,
that I'm growing out of the bark
my voice turns to
when I speak to my father.
Tell them I've grown out of
silly weeping over silly boys.
Tell them where there were cracks
now pretty clovers grow.
Tell them that I've found friends
who hold my hands
when I tremble with anxiety.
And tell them that
I hold these same friends
when their monsters threaten
to come from under their beds.

Tell them. Tell them how much
their little girl has grown.

Oh, I swear,
I swear I will confess
of all the sins which poison the well
of the crusty diseased soul
I keep locked in a chest
in the most hidden dark path
of my muddled, mediocre mind!

I will confess curled on the ground
of my ungratefullness,
of my laziness,
of the egocentric refusal of
accepting anything but approval,
of the compulsive lies that
my lips and fantasy knit in a sweater
which covers the bare chest
of my uncontrolled rage.
To it all I will confess!

I swear I never asked for it.
I will try my best to assure you
that none of my faults are my fault,
but in the tangled web of lies
where I coddle myself to sleep every night,
I do not know what part of me is real
anymore.
So despite my assurance, I will plea,
don't ever trust me.

Please, I beg you to
inspect me,
inject me,
sedate me,
dissect me,
extract me,
remove me,
destroy me
and cure me.
That or just merely
crush me to bits,
(painfully but sweet)
on the operation table.

I swear I will confess
to the mess in my chest,
and after that
destroy me or rebuild me.
I can't remain this way, believe me!