A distant dissonance
Deepens in threat
As my lips form new syllables
And fingers, new frets
It’s my grandmother’s voice—
My namesake, in fact—
That waltzes in echoes
Through bright chambered chest
Amassing new power
Revving dense to unfurl
Like peonies in bloom, or
Cherry blossom pearls
In descent.

It’s true:
That for which I’m meant—
Good time,
Good fortune,
Good riddance—
I will only know
After roared repent
Where I’ll expel
Dusk’s detriment,
And bellow soul’s
Percussive song
In long-overdue
Performance

When the day’s sweat
Is swilled away by
Weeping gold sage
Spilling reasons
To stay
But instead
Sweet stone remnants
Crack and concave
Filling impermeable
Graves
Gone cold

Tell me,
What is left to hold?

Pressure is destined
To grow like horns
Until diamonds and opals
And emeralds form
Such beauty lends to liberate,
But pressure does a cloaked wing drape:
Forging gems to foreign shapes
Fusing faces and facets, interlaced
Until dimmer does the mass reflect
The silhouette of pressure’s deft

Your sweet melody
Sticks to my neck
Like fingers nectarine
And when the sun
Heaves heat upon me,
Oh, how it sings