chiding words
seize my heart
your blade forged deep
within my breast
tainted by wrath
my droplets stain pathways
toward turbulent seas
let the crimson
run
set my voice
free
reunite beauty
from pain's mystique
drain memories
steeped in mistrust
I will not entice anger
disenchant this hope
alienate my spirit
send this poetry,
sweetest love

she's the alter ego
the Spanish Maria
to my demure smiles
the trembling lips
West Side Story hips
playing opposite
my downplayed reflection
fingers reaching
beseeching the recesses
of who I am
passionate Latina
to my pale skin
the antipode within
my sensual dance
siesta dama,
midnight enchantress,
soft suede Madonna
black magic seductress
whispering ****** intentions
within innocent guile

I blush even now,
our earliest memory, a sleek song slipped
about my mind as we drove along
the Emerald coastline staring through
sunset's liquid blaze,
our strange magic stirring embers
I thought were distant, faded
from my heart, warm pigments
suspended in ultramarine air-
how you painted my eyes
in burnt umber, my lips
with cadmium red
as I awakened
from the sea's silk
your earth and fire

I feel your composition
rippling beneath my brush
the complexity of your mind
hands softening
around my shadow

how your voice    lingers
on my page captivating
each breath . . .  you flicker
in gaslight as I beckon
you closer - come, I want
to discover you beyond
the palette of words
constructed in my dreams
touch the highlights
of fantasy as you trace
every thought of me

stay, beneath night's cover
promise not to dissolve
in whispering mists of dawn,
my muse, envelop me
in your love's unreality

my thoughts
   are    h e m o r r h a g i n g
so much         slippery

                       feeling
               betrays my silence- steeped in murky isolation,

                                   I cannot . . .
tear
                         sufficient
    strips of paper
                 with syllables
            to quell this wailing wall erected around my heart  
            I kneel

before
      an altar              

      recollecting      
                                      ­­   reconciling
  beliefs
        that might coagulate
and
         so preserve [stained faith]

I whisper  a solitary

         word    
                 BELIEVE
    
    feeling its enchanted ripples

sifting between stiffened fingers

      holy water to disillusioned lips

speak for me
        these splintered lines
align
again to         lyrically arrange

              my dissonant song

a new semester
filled with uncertainty
for teachers . . .
more anticipation of the unknown
fear for our colleagues,
our students-
and yet,
I can't imagine a career
I'd rather risk my life for
than for the smiles of students
our crazy, harmonious connections  
I can't fathom being
any other than what I am
one who loves and supports
our future
when I rest my mind on this affection,
all the rest dies away
for all at once
I smile, again, meeting
a new family, collaboration
filled with possibility
together, we are reborn
again
and fear falls away
we are students and teacher
engaged in the beauty
of a journey
an exchange, even CoVid
can't deny

frost bitten, burdened
with a rucksack of sorrows,
we unravel doubts casting them
far below . . .
the darkened riverbed  
channeling heartbreak
through an embouchure
of song, harmonic breath
of winter's solstice, lilting promise
tilted toward warmer seasons
hope's amulet inscribed
with goldenrod
and swallow's melody