Face pale like the waning

embers of our last December

suddenly I feel how cold the winter

really was without your patient hand

ripe with hot, sanguine blood

warming my palm like a delicate egg

on the cusp of hatching into someone unafraid

of you or me or the dissapointed

last words of my mother that ate me up

like maggots on a carcass but

I’m not even dead.

I’ve barely been born

I am the pride in Oberon’s Love-lorn
Crown and the bleeding in Hamlet’s voice.

Its the taste of iron in my wounded

throat that reminds me: I am not

a cow, dog, flower or forest.

That my **humanity

Who has to die a little

just to know itself

will one day choke me

until the blue in my face

resembles the blue around

Your veteran eye

Or the blue around the Albatross’ sky

moments before she died

in spite of those who loved her

Who shed tears like silver coins

buying a shard of happiness

to use as a nail that could

Crucify our grieving souls, but

corpses still cast shadows

even after you lick your thumb

to silence the sun like a wick.