Women are born with heavy feathered wings
Hands that hide starlit craters
Celestially they spin in infinity and find each other
Stroking the softness, in awe at the wonder of the unashamed mystique
That perpetuates newly hatched faces

A world without the incessant need for reassurance
Which towers intimidatingly over the forest border
Small ordinances that keep themselves airless
No longer striving for the greater force of flight
Clipping away their feathers with garden shears, hosing down the blood

Tuscan architecture abandoned countless ages ago
Ancient in idea and aesthetic
I’ve wandered many miles to reach such exotic visions that have been dead for so long
The heads of kings lined up on the edge of a waterfall
Their bodies still holding onto the swords they clipped their wings with long ago

A little further, a river emerges and spills cold water from the azimuth of God
There was a communicator present at the time of cleansing, unbeknownst to me
To accept ones sins is to be cleansed of them, don’t you agree?
He asked this with shaking shoulders, his robes unraveling to reveal the scars on his chest
One for each pectoralis
I looked away in tragedy

I enter the wooden gate, into the Macedonian fortresses of old
My torso has been replaced with a harp, which I feel these princes pluck so sensitively
I hear the timber echo throughout my chest and vibrate in my throat
My back has merged without consent to a beast that bends backwards
The harp strings have been torn
I am now mute

Raising the weary head of the sleeping dog and the sleeping disdain
I slept in an isolated piece of land untouched by human hands
And sank into the forest floor
In which the grass and all living creatures decided I had left the physical form
My eternal resting place

I waited…
Waited for the music to stop
So you would stop all your dancing.

I waited…
Waited to get your attention
While the attention was on you.

I waited…
Waited my turn to be seduced
While you seduced another man.

I waited…
Waited for the dimming spotlight
So the spotlight could shine elsewhere.

I waited…
Waited on your flirtatious kiss
While you kissed every man that night.

I waited…
Waited to partake in your lust
While my lust played me as your fool.

I waited…
Waited for the music to stop
So I could stop fantasizing.

i hail from heat, heat
in the heart and in the home, in the head and in the heel of the
sword that swings for both justice and action.
i inherit this love, this life and these virtues like heirlooms.
i inherit this boldness from you
i inherit the air of a highborn lady, while not without the humility of a low born daughter from you
i inherit gentle hands of craft into fists of rage and fire that melt away sorrows from you
i rise and fall, for from you
i breathe.
unspoken it was passed down, and yet it stirs and whispers to me in my bones of
ancient thought and force,
passed down from kin to kin, from one blood to another of
temperance and will
that flow like tradition—
a book written on age-old sandstone pressed eons below the earth,
text mapped in bloodlines over a body, not alone. never fading.
you bid me to rise from dust and ashes into the woman of your forging,
and so with a kiss between my brow for
farewell and fortune
i may live with your light tucked into my heart,
because my inheritance lives within me.

I was lying in bed watching the morning news
when the weather babe came on.

I was hypnotized.

the way that she moved back and forth:
from the right side of the screen,
to the left, and to the right again.
and the way that she moved her lips
when she talked.

and her voice.
ohh. . . her voice: so sweet, so ****,
so innocent, so pure.

and when she looked at the camera,
it was as though we locked eyes.

I could date a weather babe.
she would have the ability to look into the future.
she could predict my sunny days, my gloomy days,
and my rainy days.
and I would love her even when she is wrong.

if it didn’t work out with the weather babe,
I could date the traffic babe.
she would be there for me
whenever I’m in a jam.

I have this fantasy
of
us
sitting on the
couch
drinking
smoking
talking

then at dusk
we
sit outside
and
we
drink and
smoke and
talk
some more

you
telling
me
what’s on
your
mind
and
me
telling
you
what’s on
my
mind

not that
I
ever really
have much on
my
mind
or
at least
anything
worth
talking about

you
do most
of the
talking
and
I
just
listen
to
your
voice:
the most
beautiful
voice
given to
the most
beautiful
woman
ever
created

then after
we
finish
our
drink and
our
smoke
we
make
love
and
we
lie naked
feeling each other’s
heartbeat
and
hearing each other’s
breathing

and
in the morning
I look at
you
as
you
sleep and
I
admire
you
and
appreciate
you

and after a
good morning kiss
we
get up and
do it all
again

in another life
i wear clay beneath my fingernails
and linen pants around my hips
fastened with a braided leather belt
rescued from my mother’s closet
one she wore in the eighties
when she met my father on the seaside of france
i carry flowers from the corner
down a gum-stained sidewalk
past the park i fell asleep in during one
slow sunday afternoon
there are cherry red stains on my pillow
some from my lips, some not
i’ve never been in love
but i’ve never felt alone
my nose is slender
and my collarbones flaunt themselves
beneath tanned skin
i am someone who drinks ***** and
orange juice while watering my plants
a longhaired cat licks its paws
in the windowsill
as i lie naked in the sunlight
reading tolstoy and kerouac
and obscure poetry introduced
by the neighbor in 4F
none of it matters
i am just like a cloud
like a creaking step
i share myself only through
spearmint breath and coffee dates
here are my sweaty palms
here are my uneven bangs
you will never know me

The faces in the water, they sleep  

  for eternity, their tears

    frozen
                in
                    the



                 ­          deep.