I never thought about my whiteness,
other than to realize
that I’m ghost-white
and therefore
not as attractive as some
tan buxom babe.
I thought more
about my economic status:
upper middle class
with plenty
that would give me a leg up,
that I knew I’d never
lack for higher education.
It has gradually occurred to me,
though,
that even though I may have
a societal advantage
being white and all that,
I’m still a chick
and therefore have
several strikes against my success,
or at least a comparable salary.
Not to mention the load of ridiculous
expectations to be
mother, successful career woman,
housekeeper, **** star, and ******.
Hooray for the Bible Belt,
where church is next door to the ***
Adult stores targeted
at hick white males.
Hooray for my mother’s
Texas family
where it’s okay for an adopted
daughter-in-law
to be gay
but nobody else is allowed
and some of them will look
down their noses at my
Indian boyfriend
and ask me why
I’m diluting
my blood with a foreigner.

The night prowls gently
Just skims the ground,
Brings truth,
As all things shift
To darkness, breathing
In wait of

The orb
The eye
The white glow
Evenstar, awake,
Show the patterned iris
Entrance without a blink
Earth’s emerald call.

Sift the folds of light through
Dusty night in
A forest of dim arches,
Cast a gaze upon branches,
Smooth seeming

Yet they know eternities
Of watching
One another sway
In the spirit of wind

A silvery presence
In the midst
Of earth’s core truth,
The mind of alone
Whispers of hunger
In the night

That prowls gently.

Thunderheads collide, shake the sky
Disturb solidity and sleep.

Lightning rends the sea,
A division, a decision

To walk across unscathed—
To lose yourself in waters unknown

For blissful or torturous life of your heart
that lies drying and dying on the sand.

She was effervescent, they told me.
When she took her mask off—
Her composed features would crack
And a glow came from underneath
Through the fissures
When she took her mask off—
The pure, white shell would fall away
And reveal golden glory,
The unseen strength that surged forth
When she took her mask off—

Interior silence
Resounds
Reverberates
Through thin vessel walls.
How this heart has been betrayed
By the body
Whose mind let go nobility.
And refined the slithering ideas
Of duplicity
Interior silence
Hollow, hallow
Treasonous
To the consciousness of desire.
What happens
When the blood betrays
The very heart that pumps it
Through the mind?

Black ribbon
unfolds
before her
yet murky eyes
see naught
from floating
depthless void
silver light depart

I never liked dolls.
Their hard, impersonal faces were immovable,
Their distant, glass eyes fixed somewhere past me.
Only their frail hair yielded to touch,
But it collected dust more quickly.