Agnes:
Wine, for the Greeks, brought more than
burgundy to the screen, instead
illuminant pinks and purples and yellows
swirl and wirl and twirl in orchestrated
dances of Spring.

Cherubim soar, teasingly mocking these gods,
drunk with passion and their grape wine while
pegasi rest, swoop and land like swans to a water’s surface.
Joy and ***** happiness, lovely and sound,
they prance.

In a swirl, in a wirl and in a twirl,
you bring me back to my favorite scene,
when Fantasia was my insight on art
when my mother would sit and watch with me,
instead of busying herself with others.

I had not thought of that in years,
I had not remembered the jolt to my system,
to the system of a little girl, who, often alone
had to create her own art, often had to
imagine her own melodies.

Agnes, you’ve brought the next jolt,
I’m once again flying with the black Pegasus, swooping back
to the dark living room, followed by a stampede of centaurs
cherubim lulling me to sleep,
swirling and wirling and twirling my own colors,
carrying me back to her music.

She woke us up whistling,
a tune she felt fit the morning.
She was practical, determined in her walk
unlike my sister and I, who let the buckets clamber against our calves.
The garden was dark, dew was still resting, quietly
the air was soft, warm, like blankets we had just left.
We stood over the bean patch, a vibrant green
in the blistering sun, a deep green in this early morning.
She told us to begin picking.
I begin;
lifting the plant to the side one way,
I pluck the strings like I was taught years ago
and toss them into my bucket.
I do the same, clumsy movement to the other side.
She is humming the same tune she whistled, farther ahead than I.
I watch her from the side,
her fingers move with swift, practiced movements
fingers strict, demanding and the beans, refusing to test her
not like they so often did with me
I study her hands, the bones prominent where her age has raised
the veins, the tendons;
though hers are stronger, stronger than mine will ever be.
I didn’t notice as she turned,
noticed me watching, still bent over the same patch
and looked at me, eyes easy, voice strong—
“Girl, get movin’,
You won’t want to be pickin’ when
the sun rises”
And I, refusing to test her,
fall into her words
like the beans to the pail
and pick some more.

lounging in a ripped and stretched
wifebeater, a breast half peeking
and my legs, unshaved
propped against the wall

i watch as he creeps closer,
holding me with his gaze,
beads of sweat forming on his brow.

i smile at him to show him i'm not nervous,
turning to arch my back and allow
my hair to cover my eyes

i know he is unbuttoning his pants
staring at my underwear, lace-rimmed
and clinging to the parts he will touch soon

i let him **** me because
i had nothing better to do

i'm just weird
i think too much,
swivel thoughts around my mind
until i suffocate my brain,
i think too much
i think too much
i think too much.

i wanna stop,
for just a second
and apologize, then
i realize,
i'm thinking too much
i'm thinking too much,

just shut up.

I sneer at the obscenities attached to my hips,
        reflecting back at me from my mocking mirror.
Laugh! Laugh at me!
It’s okay.
My dark humor stalks me.
He grasps my waist—
I **** in, recoil and Shrink
from the vicinity of his gentle touch.
He tries to reassure me.

How could he see? How could he understand?
To him—to him, it’s only a lie,
something I only imagine.
“It’s all in your head”—
My head? It’s the lightest Part!
My waist staggers down to the lumps,
The clumped hips, travels quickly without fail
Changing form—sometimes, sometimes it isn’t there—
But I feel it, I feel it, I do. I feel myself
weighed Down, and when I weigh In,
my eyes do not cover up its answer.

That day, a day like any other,
the tuxedo cat pads down the stairs while
a refrigerator hums in the kitchen, and outside,
leaves sway and drift to the ground into the melting of
dead, brightly lifeless colors.
But watch as her glass, dropping from her hand, bounces
to the floor, as the tea kettle screams and her hands blanket her mouth,
and notice as she’s unable to cry out. Now watch—watch as the TV man lifts his paper
with shaking hands, voice trembling as he introduces live footage of
crumbling and desolating powder flying through the air like a pound of
grey flour being thrown at the floor, exploding in every possible direction.
Watch as people scream, flee to anywhere, yet unable—unable to flee to
what we had before this,
one we were all begging for as
we watched her towers
desolate to the ground of New York City.
And outside, there were too many legs to find my father.
I saw the tears, a nervous and unsettling aura hanging over their heads,
how could anyone, any child, take in this fear
and understand it?
Once, when I was little, I heard a quote—I don’t remember
where from anymore. But it followed me, rang through
my ears, drumming with a hard, undeviating hammer,
at that moment. “We’re all as separate as fingers,
yet we are always from the same hand.”
Why were we all separated? Why—
why was this happening? I’ll never forget when I looked
and noticed the crossing guard give up on direction,
shoulders wilting as he turned his back and walked away.
Then there was Dad, and amongst the panic, the one—the
only one I knew would tell me, who would soothe me, who
would make sense of all the corruption, he grabbed my wrist,
pulled me into his arms and cradled me as if I was indeed the infant
I felt like in those short minutes. He walked home, not saying a word,
holding me in his arms.
I knew not to say anything. I knew at that moment, that
even if I asked, he would not answer. I saw him helpless,
the armor and strength ripped from him for the first time.
I decided to try anyway
and as I looked up and opened my mouth, his tears, silent
and unnoticed by me, splattered onto my face,
and I knew I would have no answer speak louder
than of that.

Sway, sway
pinch the corner of your dress
with your ******* and thumb as you
twirl, twirl, round and round,
Oh how your hair flies, your pearls drape down your
neck, like a chandelier pronouncing you,
introducing us to your crystallized grace.

He cannot help himself, his urge to squeeze
and hold you dear,
Dear you're his queen,
even at sixteen, with your June baby-on-the-way belly,
he watches as you swayed, and twirl, twirl,
you remove his fear, wash it away from his face
with your gentle fingers,
you introduce him to your grace,
later,

You cut your hair short, put away your dresses,
packed the pearls to the side--
until you dressed me, giggled as I tripped in your
satin gowns, shuffled clumsily in your high heels,
you tied ribbons to my hair, needing no brush,
twirling my hair through your fingers,
you tell me to sway, to twirl,
you place the pearls over my head,
I was never afraid.

Now your hair is gone, I can no longer
wear your dresses, or shine in your pearls,
but you are still a chandelier, existing
now more than ever.
Your grace never bowed to age, your eyes
are still glinting, shining and
he is scared,
I am scared,
we are all scared, Grandmother,
but you stand straight, removing clothes pins
from the line outside.

We watch you waltz with white linen,
and I see you before you disappear behind the sheets,
I see your silhouette twirling, your dress and your hair--
I see you,
unafraid, still swaying.

The air is clean, open.
Nothing is so profoundly loud.
Snow is rooted and solid,
and each snowflake placed on purpose.

The quiet whispers through the wind and
there isn’t a sound that speaks as clearly
as the vast emptiness of this winter.

Honest are these snowflakes,
placed on purpose.

It is as if something this solid
is expected to stay, as though
silence will never change.

As though the snowmen will
always laugh.

I hope that what is true
at this moment, will still be
when the sun decides to rise.

Snow will melt, however.
The silence will liquefy,
the solidarity of these purposefully placed moments—
these will fade.

New hopes will appear,
solidify themselves,
only to be spoken,
the cold silence shattered.

Chipping nails,
shards of hardened skin
and turquois on silver,  her hand
attached to a paperback permeating of rotting corpses and wilted flowers among

washed up license plates scuffed by sea glass,
once a bottle of a failed enlightened and darkened drunk,   I am sure of it.
You drool, salvia skulking your chin—
loose fingers drop the rain-soaked umbrella
and
I’m drenched in water, I sail down the street, on an arc brimmed with mammals
and arachnids; six of the spiders, two of the dog.

I spit out and profess the skin once clung to my lips, I see the layers,

out here, two dogs prance around the field, tripping over each other
as six spiders creep and crawl under us, slithering
one lands

on my sweater in the classroom,
         I squish it dead,
with the heel of my hand. Usually, I’d scream.
Instead, I took the power to make something alive—something dead.
Fog-Horn Leg-Horn, “and then-and then, I say-I say” kills you,

wadding you beneath the cooped-up coop,
Swiper Swipes No More.

When I fly away,
shimmering waves of seed, golden under
the dimming light of this August evening and
the soft breeze ripples
the sea of corn, spread wide
over the body of land,

the rocking chair sighs unchanging motion,
back and forth, back and forth,
as the abyssal field stretches. I am cast
into the waves;
I float on to this serene place and

from the porch, I breathe in the emerging dew,
the quiet dampness of summer
the dirt on the road.
The fire flies, the cicadas
come out looking for each other,
flashing meager lights,
pulsing chirps through the twilight.

The sunset fills the sky, the house, clings to my hair like
dust caught in a sunlit room, suspended
in the air in a dance of gravity.
I am stunned with fondness, it
soothes me, pours from my skin like beads of sweat
dripping down my collar bone.

Free from the sting within myself,
I sit, I rock.