I open up smooth channels from cobwebbed
cellars to emerge at lake bottoms

Mine is the legacy of century old wasps trapped
in glass light fixtures attached to plaster
ceilings in Hong Kong and Siberia

I remember ancestors trapped in ice and
amber death screams preserved perfectly
eyes fixed on eternity

where spiders lurk unbothered
over the ******* of women warriors
and lions have eaten every man tempted

we cannot imagine the war engines they
eventually will create to unhinge us
from our proud and complacent positions

from which we perpetually ****

The Ding Dongs at the T.S.A.
decided as of yesterday
frosted Cupcakes aren't allowed on Board
flights domestic or abroad.

They employ the dumbest of the dumb
To harass us as we go and come.
Miss Liberty must be dismayed
to be prodded, strip searched and X-ray'd.

Thus the Empire extends its claws
through privacy invading laws
They won't repeat Marie's mistake
encouraging people to eat cake.

No men.
But when the
conversation starts, they dominate.
Worm their way into every sentence, every silence.
Every caught breath, exhaled pause.
Names, nice-to-meet-yous, passed round with sandwiches and tea.
Hole-riddled autobiographies, wadded out with circumstance and need.
Explaining themselves, defending their actions. In turn. And I?
Have never felt so young.
To my left, and working clockwise: Affair-with-the-boss, Heart-condition, High-risk-of-genetic-defects,
In-the-middle-of-a-divorce-not-sure-why-she-slept-with-him, Grown-up-children-can’t-bear-to-go-through-that-again,
and back to me. (Boyfriend-has-two-kids-wants-no-more)
He noticed that I’m pregnant.
Was pregnant.
Was.
We chew our way through sandwiches. Different coloured fillings, no flavour- choked down with lukewarm tea.
We know it’s a test.
We have to talk, smile, eat, drink, laugh (not manically)
if we're to go home.
I can’t do it.
I want to cry. But I’ve been told off for that already (curled up on a trolley, examining bloodied fingers)
I drift, I think.
Jump out of my skin when she speaks to me.
You must eat she says.
You must eat.
I search for myself in their eyes,
re-make myself from fragments and reflections I find there (Four parts child, one part *****)
It’s OK, I tell her. It’s OK.
On my way home I’ll get a Happy Meal.
I’m collecting the toys.

Each year, each winter, each time
the first snow falls
familiar feelings fall with it.

Clean, dense white traverses
heaven to earth.

All covered, cottoned and calm,
I stand watching,
muted now as earth,
sure, silent and certain
as my own inevitable death.