When I think of you
or of what you could be,
all I can know for sure is that
you are beautiful.

Sometimes I imagine you
with a curtain of ebony hair
(sometimes it’s red like the sunrise we see
as I drive you to school each day)
and a stack of books cradled in your arms
(sometimes you ask me to read to you—
Langston & Lewis & Luke’s Gospel).
You say phrases like:
“Momma,
(Oh, just hearing you call me so!)
I hate boys;
all I want to do is read,”
--A woman after my own heart.

But even if you inherit my
troublesome, rebellious brown & gold curls,
and you fumble with a tennis racket and those yellow-green bullets,
a gym bag slung over your shoulder,
I’ll still want
to spread peanut butter on your crust-cut-off bread,
to tuck your sheets in on your little twin mattress,
and search for that lost ladybug sock in the dryer
(but only because it’s your favourite).

I know you’re beautiful;
not because of your genes,
or because you’re my daughter,
but because you’re completely you,
and I
       (already)
love you this way.

Faces & meaning,
the artist offers answers
in his canvases:
a woman’s thick, black robes
cannot completely express
the turmoil her creator bears.
He points the words
Come See Mother
Come See Mother
Come See Mother
like urgency is bleeding
from his brush;
a final plea
for his creator.

But even though the painting
wanders in the minds of many
days after they have looked upon its majesty,
the artist leaves his disconnect
his frustrations
his screams
on the canvas.
Putting the brush to bed,
he steps away, fulfilled,
like the tails at the end of a scream…

only to unknowingly alleviate the young girl
who walks into the gallery,
like a child raiding the fridge for milk
in the middle of midnight,
only to find it and a plate of chocolate chip cookies
left out
*just for her.

In this room,
a quiet room,
my dear friend
plays the piano
(he sighs into the ivory keys;
his fingers urgently pushing them
to their limits.)
                                  &
tunes his voice.
             (“I’m gonna make a lot
              of weird noises,” he says,
      aahhh,
        aahhahaaahh
                       ­ &trills.;
              Up to the ceiling, his voice goes.)

He pushes&pushes;&pushes;
his voice,
echoes&echoes;,
his eyes,
              closed.

A smile
peeks out through the syllables caught in his cheeks
while his feet aimlessly step upon those three little pedals,
as if he’d just been doing
the daily commute to and from work.

I sit on the floor,
a floor dusted with the footsteps of ***** shoes and
the result of lonely instruments.

I listen.

After he reaches that high C,
I look up at him and smile
and he looks down and smiles
and for a moment,
all of the pains I had
before I knocked on his door
dissipate into the air,
as beauty radiates in the room
in the form of eighth & quarter notes,
Italian & French,
aaahs & the silence of
            peace.

Over Christmas
I was fine:
my grief’s appetite suppressed,
a comatose beast of tumultuous emotions,
for once, not ready to strike at the smallest
hush
whisper
smile
look.
No fits of rage,
no bouts of nausea.

But my beast slumbers only when
you’re not there
to beckon it,

and when your laugh doesn’t echo
through empty hallways,
and your little bubbles of conversation
with my best friends,
waking it with a bucket of hot coals,

or when I don’t have to dwell on
how your smile plays
hide-and-go-seek:
a fickle creature that desires not to face me
on a daily schedule,
mine is ready to strike at any moment.

For when I was “home”
in my mere shell of reality,
with nothing but numbness
& ignorance of your existence
to patch up the holes
in the tattered quilt of “us,”
if only for three weeks,
you weren’t there.

But now that I’m back and you’re back,
that hunger awakens deep in my gut.
It bleeds,
it scrapes.
My beast longs to devour
a portion of my peace,
hour by hour.
And with each passing
look of your eyes in my eyes,
fear in yours & a transparent loathing shield in mine,
I am nearly crumbled
in defeat.

People are fallible creatures,
infallible being, of course, perfect,
and therefore fallible meaning
imperfect?

The fall of man
The fall of an apple onto Newton’s head
The apple falling, half-eaten, onto the ground
where God questioned Adam.
Like a man, he blames another, and
Like a woman, Eve hushes her mouth
and takes it.

I, a woman, fall and scrape my knees
Outside in front of a crowd of young men
(boys),
and they do nothing to aid
in the pavement’s punishment for my clumsiness.

And I, a woman, stand
    (up for myself?)
knees creaking, tendons snapping,
brush the dirt off the hole in my
thick, black, bloodied tights,
and grit my teeth in waiting
for what will come next.

For, just because we are
fallible,
doesn’t mean we cannot stand up.

Movement One—The Death of the Day

I brought you to my quiet place,
where love and weeds bloom
on the hillside, a steep, steep place;
much better for rolling down
than looking up.

We closed our eyes,
those sweet, subtle sounds
whispering in our ears
while my fingertips scream,
aching to connect with yours.

And I wait
for you to be brave
and reach out to me
in this moment of openness
and fear of regret.
But you stay
still.

I yearn for you to feel the way I feel;
to say what I want you to say,
but you say     .
(nothing)
You leave my hands cold,
my hopes futile.

Movement Two—The Arson

But what you do,
you do with no apprehension:
you leap onto me,
a lion onto a waiting gazelle,
your hands ravenous for my flesh.

My lips have no chance to speak
as the spark they once held is extinguished
by your own cruel, white flames.

I can hear the smothering of my bones,
the last gasps of my heartbeat
as you pin me to the grass and burrs,
my hair entangled in my mistake.
My skin is the only thing that can speak,
as bruises begin to whisper
the evidence of my demise.

And I cannot lock the gates
as you stampede over my body,
tearing buttons, stretching fabrics,
and I hurt so much
but am stuck in the quicksand of silence.

Movement Three—The Rebellion

Why were you so kind?
Why did you convince me you were different?
That I was interesting,
that you don’t treat girls
THIS WAY.

I throw your impudence in your face
with my words,
without silence.
With my dignity,
without hate.

Movement Four—Like Air

Number 12, you were so fair.
Number 12, you did not break me.
Number 12, I am no ashes.
Number 12, I swallow you whole.