It isn’t as if
I must put on
the Queen’s English
to be around you.

It isn’t as though
I should feel
the need to rebel, or
that my solitude

is a luxury
instead of a right.
Rather, these are
the whale-bone songs

of a well-worn battalion,
poised as I am
at every solstice,
footsore at the door.

This is simply
the ebb and flow
of ambrosia
that sets the pendulum

to swing
in different arcs
of fool’s gold,
the soft footings

at the edge of my radar.
This is the culture shock
of living dead girls
undergoing a seismic shift

in the round
mother-of-pearl
mountain ash,
insinuating

themselves
in a sea of voices,
while shadows cast
a romantic screen.

For every one that succeeds,
millions of others fail.
So tell me
how it should be,

that I could live
on my knees
and weep honey tears
as my dreams escape me.

Because this is
a death of sorts.
The phoenix rises,
only to burn again.

Poverty
is a personal Shanghai,
and just as vast.
I want to believe

that wealth can be
weathered beauty,
Elizabethan colouring,
and a pirate smile.

You get my most
gorgeous parts,
although
my flaws,

innumerable,
hidden
in blind spots,
hidden in ivory,

are discovered
again and again,
as I live between what was
and what will be.