We* often *Owned, what We don’t Own.
Being  Possessive, We become Invasive.

                 - We often Neutralize, what We can’t Realize.
                     - Full Realization comes after the Actual Destruction.
Creating our own Ending.



*© Pax

THEY have painted and sung
the women washing their hair,
and the plaits and strands in the sun,
and the golden combs
and the combs of elephant tusks
and the combs of buffalo horn and hoof.
  
The sun has been good to women,
drying their heads of hair
as they stooped and shook their shoulders
and framed their faces with copper
and framed their eyes with dusk or chestnut.
  
The rain has been good to women.
If the rain should forget,
if the rain left off for a year-
the heads of women would wither,
the copper, the dusk and chestnuts, go.
  
They have painted and sung
the women washing their hair-
reckon the sun and rain in, too.

These walls are wet
Where I've kept
Myself entombed
Too long.
Shoulder to stone
I'll push and wiggle
Until the light is warm,
Until the dark is gone.

I step unseen
From the grotto
Where I wallowed
With my song;
The stupor echoes
Of my voice,
The only voice,
Of an aria
That went wrong.

The music's sounding
Better now,
I'm distanced from
My cave;
I'll keep moving
East for now,
For westward
Is my grave.

These days
I am too cold
My palms are at rest
Down for the long winter
My coordination and
dexterity will hibernate
And I'll cloak this poor body
With anything I can

An almost married woman
Clings to the hems of my sleeves
With thin fingers
With scissors
There to cut away the warm wool
With wild eyes
and a bitter mouth

She gathers my coat in a basket
Unravels all the careworn fibers
To cast upon her empty loom
As though she'd spun them

Casts off newly sewn kisses
Threadbare affection
Muttering crossly about the weather
And how the sun
does not melt the snow

She is only my friend when
She can touch my bare wrists
Give me white hot iron to hold
And ask me if I'm warmer

Only my friend when
She can graze my skin in surprise
Wrap my hands up with stiff yarn
And ask me what burned them

Before she has her floor swept
  Or her dishes done,
Any day you’ll find her
  A-sunning in the sun!

It’s long after midnight
  Her key’s in the lock,
And you never see her chimney smoke
  Till past ten o’clock!

She digs in her garden
  With a shovel and a spoon,
She weeds her lazy lettuce
  By the light of the moon.

She walks up the walk
  Like a woman in a dream,
She forgets she borrowed butter
  And pays you back cream!

Her lawn looks like a meadow,
  And if she mows the place
She leaves the clover standing
  And the Queen Anne’s lace!