Sun is hotter,
but moon is nearer.

Yellow-belted dress
in runny mirror?

Come naked night,
intent is clearer.

In the day air
you can hear her

bright beguiling verses;
after dark is dearer -

moon-mouthed poems
are sincerer.

The truculent sun
escapes cloud guard
& serves us day

over green bonnet trees
that birth false fruit
where wasps crawl.

Now the roads fill
with rioting flax,
rose rays, rude rain -

there's too much life -
the world's heart is burst,
blonde-broken sobs.

I’m no daughter
I’m no mother
born under a cabbage
only worms
as my fellow cradle
I crawled
on barren land
my ***** and scratched  skin
covered with calluses

I’m no daughter
I’m no mother
born under a cabbage
I fell
the icy water took me
but I was colder than it
the current  carried me away
I climb on the bank
I was clean

I am mother
I became  daughter
I palpated
happiness

father,
it has been over a decade
since my last confession;
in fact,
that crisp lenten day,
you in your purple,
I refused to come in,
giggling,
because I had committed nothing
worth an intermediary.

under lock and key,
anxious not to make trouble,
a natural people pleaser,
what could I child do but
laugh at sin?

today my prayers are mingled -
mangled,
a clutter of languages and deities:
my god is one but also many.
I’m not even Catholic anymore,
But for old time’s sake,
will you listen?

endlessly she looks on
lashes never flinching
no lids weighed by metal
to blink as you rock her
imaginary tears to fall

a little box freshly made
smells of melted plastic
made by wrinkled hands
with eyes shut tight
droplets soiling the exterior

the night her wisp of a candle
dimmed and turned to smoke
i held her in my arms
knowing she couldn't hear me
yet still sang that lullaby
the one that played each time
you pulled the string attached
to her back

and when i peaked down at
the window of her entrapment
my weepy eyes reflected on
her cracked porcelain skin
i imagined her mint condition
just like the day
i brought her home