In tatters
My heart
still beats

How it
can be so
is a mystery

Dragged through
the streets like
a dog

For all to see
Ragged and
betrayed

Left on
the side
of the road

To die
But it lives
purportedly

Poetry feeds us in that dreaming place
        where we are held captive,
Words slipped under the door --

Here is what I know:
It is food for my muse that sweet sister
        whose moods dictate mine
She throws parties in my psyche that
        last for days at a time
She sings to me of things she's seen
That make my cells careen out
        of the room flying faster than
        thought itself
And the poem's heart appears --

It is as mystical as
        it should be --

I like the quick snap of sharp poetry
And the way it comes, unstoppable,
Like a rushed intake of breath
A mad courtship of longing and will
Until by chance, almost, a birth --
Prosodies brought from heart to pen
To bounce and jostle in their metered gaits
And front a small rebellion on the page
Before settling into the circumstances --

I sense this world is not what it seems
This sugar-plum Home, some counterfeit dream
Where I might have played
        dress-up in mother's closet
And pretended to be grown -- like her
And beautiful -- like her

Where I might have had enough to eat
        Safe inside a child's sleep
My sparrow's heart tucked in with a story

Tonight I drank the star-studded sky
As the need for why
        dissolved in my cup
Now is enough --

I have been warned
Not to make my mouth
A funeral for the truth

But how dull
        the unembellished life
A birth          A death
And time's pranks between
What is left when the lies
        are struck?
Lethal mediocrity

I am standing at the precipice
And you are my vertigo
Pulling me to leap headlong
        Into passion's brume below --

When you are near
My blood buzzes
And I am more than just
        alive --
I have become a conduit
For all that love implies --

My unfurled heart is shot
        clean through
The edges of all my thoughts
        now contain you --