I wrote your name on my wrist,
All the things that we have lost,
I hated seeing you like this,
Depression gone, but at what cost?

I wrote your name on my wrist,
Only to slice right through,
You were on top of the list
Yet you never had a clue.

I wrote your name on my wrist,
Knowing it wouldn't last,
But i rewrite it sometimes,
Not letting go of the past.

...and words still come to my fingertips as i undress you in spirit.

almost-friend, hold me tight and love me true / stare me down, see me as i am: disquieted, patinaed and accustomed to pockets / loose change, a worn copper penny; incoherent, the thrill and lurching sensation of gravity / blooming in my core as i die in my dreams; afraid, for all that word means / of the figs that lie waiting on the branches ahead / ample and pregnant with sweet-rot possibility;

we will labor, singing of light and covalence / until dusk is shorn of its gloomy nightgown / staving off the cold with what tea, what liquid light / the yielding sun could gift our wide eyes: / just ask, darling almost-friend / and i will provide, because…

you are a fawn, limber and knobby-kneed / and i am but a stranger waxing melancholy in stolen glances from afar / as you come into focus in my wood / drinking from my fountains and eating from my briars / leaving me to wonder, “how could i not love such a soul, astute and gentle as it is?” / and so i offer you food and drink because i have nothing else / you could be in want of;

but such things are not for me to behold / and i fear that you will molt your coat as seasons change / the down behind your ears yielding to antlers sprouting like milk teeth from gums / tendering tender for tenacious, grace for gruesome / that you will forget the hands that have proffered to you / sustenance and healing in your darkest hours / for to see others consume satisfies my hunger / to see others delight, my vicarious feast;

in my mind’s eye, you are unclothed and angelic / even with the ophidian basin of your back pressed flat against the tiles of a scalding shower / even with tears ravaging your honest face / here, the masquerade, the spectacle and circumstance, ends / because your rapture will betray your guilt / and we will summit new zeniths hand-in-hand / be baptized, enthralled in the fresh, algid, restless oceans we called forth from the far reaches of our globe / with nothing more than the labyrinth-etched palms of our hands / charting the great floods of yesterday / inking them into the annuls of a friendship (nothing more) for the ages;

celebrate holier mysteries in the anamnesis of that day / we rested upon sand fine as powder, crusted on our knees and elbows / as the ark of our covenant neaped and sprang with cyclical certainty / almost-friend, smile me but one more drowsy floodgate grin / rest your raven-crowned head upon my bare chest / laying in that tender way for eternity / and never again will i ask that wretched question of you: "are you with me?"

no, darling almost-friend: forget me not / because fair weather or poor, my love will remain / echoing truer far and far more sweet / than the oblivious whisper of a forest brook / or the stentorian thundering of an ocean reclaiming what once belonged to it / to know that i am cared for even a fraction of how i care for you is an honor/ and as but a stranger gazing from afar, i promise you this: i will far sooner take myself for granted than you / even should no tea remain to keep us warm, i will hold you till the storm passes / and forever will your name be engraved herein.

in my native language, this is my name.

it means "Cannibal Woman"

it is well deserved

I am chickasaw.

A
name
is
selected for her,
but felt,
deep down,
like
only
familiar chains.

I have several names.

My first was the name
my mother wielded,
but she later conceded
I had an earlier name,
a longer name
that my father gave me,
a name borrowed
from the long dead,
the name authorities
would know me by.

And later, you adorned me
with shorter, snappier names -
names loaded with love
names that could be sung
and in which I took comfort
and pride.

When as a student I arrived,
wheeling cases through customs,
I saw the linguistic gymnastics
reflected in their eyes
but I kept silent and smiled,
lest they felt they fell short
lest they sensed that I found fault
in their command
of each element of my name.

But the truth is I hold
my true names elsewhere,
in my place of song and friendships
far from these shores.

I have several names
and accumulate more each year
as I spare acquaintances
the shame of verbal stumbles.

I have several names,
but I know who I am
with you.