consistent contradictions
gambling away my
happiness to the gods,
or the devils,
i can never tell which
i can never tell which
witches are good
and which ones are bad
and i'm on the edge of
glory and humiliation.
consistent contradictions
of a woman whose heart
is not in her body but
within another's, whose
home is june and whose
jail is the present
presently prosecuting
my own **** fingers
for falling and failing
and fumbling for the
light switch
for faltering and
sweltering in the heat
of heaven or hell
i can never tell which.
i can never
tell
which.

warmth in cotton
bedsheets, comfort
in rough hands
the rain fell hard
and so did i
on those cold december nights
filled with electric humming
of something
or everything
content in
knowing
my heart is yours

there are treasures in your laugh, there are daisies in your soul, there are angels in your eyes, there are oceans in your heart,
there is me, in your memories,
there is you, in my dreams

i can't wait to come home to you

280

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading—treading—till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through—

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum—
Kept beating—beating—till I thought
My Mind was going numb—

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space—began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here—

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down—
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing—then—

February chills,
High kills,
Soft touches of skin
On skin. Breathing
Deep in the dim
Light of streetlamps
Borrowing needles
And comfort and stamps
To pretend
To end
To exist
With cysts and blood
And tears and floods
Of masochistic love
Of lonely tugs
Heartstrings and
Missings and kissings
And darkness
Always, always,
Darkness

so the love of my life is the sky,
so my secrets are at the bottom of wine bottles.
so my heart, my pure heart,
is resting under muscle and bone.
i keep praying to the cigarette smokers on the corner
and the girls covered in glitter and tequila salt.
the warmth found under my king sized comforter
on my twin sized bed
miles from truth and minutes from trouble
is stifling my lungs with falsities.

so the life i am living is not my own
so i've learned the beauty of the unknown
is nothing compared to the comfort
of my sister's eyes, my mother's laugh,
my back porch at sunset in the summer
where bare feet and cigarette smoke
prance around in the grass.

so the strong hands of strangers
pull me apart.
so i let them.
because i'm not here, i'm not anywhere,
except in the house at the end of the road
with hydrangeas lining the walkway
and familiar voices calling me home.

the cars outside your window
you think of them like waves,
the ebb and flow
of tides. the light flooded
the bed sheets and i stared
in the mirror at myself.
wine-stained shirt covered
my heart from yours. my eyes
begged for anything more.
more of you, perhaps. more of me.
more of the night designed
to mask the reality.
the cars sounded like waves,
your voice sounded like honey.
my fears sounded like snow.

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands