Here I stand, a most gracious host

For though we’ve just met

I’ll quickly bend my spine

And offer a look inside

While the contents may fly errant

I hope the words are read

Risking the tearing of my pages

Over performance and stages

Or the staining of my sleeve

Over the webs spiders weave

But when all is said and set

Those who are transparent

Have more in common with ghosts

Guided by spirits

Swimming in lust

Sweat, saliva, and dried up ***

Here crumpled sheets lead to darkened streets

And the sound of the heartbeat drum

Is replaced by the tapping of feet

How beauty begins to rust

Fairy, muse, or nymph?

Opaque glass, sight unclear

They say the only way to know

Is to hold up a mirror

Now I confess, arrest me please
Though I am undeserving and completely at ease.
A quiet obsidian  house, only footsteps to be heard
The fox in the backyard, a squirrel or a bird.
I am the woman of the place, you know
A matriarch of sorts
Fruitful fungi sprout from my back
They are akin to witches warts.
I was found in a dream
I awoke upset
I am all that I need
I easily forget.

In the morning
We have a cup of coffee
Watch the sun come up or
Drape a blanket over our
Bodies that don’t move so well,
Not so well as they used to,
Not so well as they did when
We were all fire and heart.

Because now the kids are grown and
Time has changed yet again,
Into a stillness full like a constant
Roast and potatoes in the winter
Heating the house
Drifting to us as we arrive
Saying “sit, stay for a spell, eat and be loved.”

That day isn’t tomorrow
Or the next
But a lighted window on a dark night.
I’m wandering toward it
Holding her hand.
Sometimes I pull, sometimes she does.

The world keeps turning
One stroke and the axis roars
God, it spins fast enough to break
All the fragile things we made
A thousand times over

But I’ve got a secret:
I’ve got someone
That makes it so
The world doesn’t spin so fast.

And someday,
When love is forever,
In the morning
We have a cup of coffee
Watch the sun come up.

God, beautiful God
your savior voice converges
from every direction
but your deafening song, adrift
in a thousand siren winds,
carries flickers of fear to my
spread-open operating table self

how those hands work!
forcep fingers draw red lines
and pluck out the worms
once planted by ache

casting aside swathes of skin
and blood-slick baubles of silver,
you pull out my pearls
and put me back together

crossing my burgeoning breast
are threads of saintly white
my paragon body immune
to pain and love alike

when Eve ate the apple
she did it every day
to keep the blessed
doctor away