curled lying prone and
humming hot, like a wire--
thrumming, like a thread
upon which water falls. I am aching
and oversensitive
holing a howl up inside me
and feeding it to my fears

i’m going up and up, like hands

twining over heads in the lights and the smoke,

weaving into the music their own song

of tendon on tendon and rushing arteries.

if I lean my head back, you are there

and the melody is stronger, wilder,

begging tentatively to be touched

like a feral animal just beyond my fingers.

behind me, you are a mountain.


I lift my hands and I pray.

call me closing moonflower,

mist-skinned,

call me early morning dewdreaming

waking up softly

and blinking through the pearls on the spiderwebs.

call me silverbreathed,

stretching out like the yawn of a cat

pale pink-tongued

and waiting

to be kissed

so this night, I set stars heavy on my brow

and paint my lips with ash

a courting ritual, a lady’s rite—

my warpaint is the lean of my hips,

my sword, the word of gods in my mouth.

yea, I will rule thee

like the sea of my birth

and the snows of my forests,

and you will think it is you who are king.

my warpaint is the curve of my throat,

my sword, the feather-touch of fingers.

do not think that I will hesitate

to take what is divine right.

the splendor,

the agony,

the death

is mine.

grow me inside a glass dome

warm and safe

hidden away from nightmares,

and acid rain,

and fingers that pry and poke and

wilt my fragile leaves with their heat



grow me inside a jar

that you seal with peach-sticky hands,

and when the juice drips in

I will thrive on the sweetness,

and kiss it back up to you

with my summer-slick mouth

smell of chlorine

smell of safety, of *** education, of climbing fences and

scuffing sneakers on concrete steps and

shedding clothes

smell of boy

floating across from me, staring

at my mouth and my limbs.

It is simple for you to walk here.

It is simpler for me to swim.

you are bumping your feet against dead fireworks

left empty on the pool bottom--

diving underwater to find the unfamiliar shapes,

holding them up

in the light of the still-awake apartment windows

that reflect like fireflies on the ripples we leave—

and I am a runaway teenaged mermaid

finding my legs,

learning how to climb out of the glowing blue and walk

when treading water was so easy.

how do I tell you how afraid I am

of the air in between us when you untangle yourself from me—

how do I tell you that the sweat evaporating on my skin

chills me like linoleum hospital floors,

like january lakes and mountains



and I am snow, but please,

let me melt under you