remember the time I was dead?
and mary magdalene came to me there?
by the side of the road in the desert?
with her jackhammer tatoo gun?
and she made an arc of peace symbols?
smaller than dimes? from the upper right
corner of my pubic hair to my tail bone
along the pelvic crest?
but the jackals frightened her away
before she could do the yin/yangs
and I've walked with a limp ever since.

Ah! Those were the days!
Time out of time
Coiling like a child.
Sun roiling down on me like
A dimestore lamp gone psycho.
Skinned knees as dramatic as heart transplants.
We were so sane then.  Who knew we'd come to
Naught but adulthood?
Weather like space travel with the planets
Trading places: brown rain wrecked
Terrains journeying away so alabaster
Orbs of snowscape arrive beneath ones'
Window and feet.  Well and not to fall in love,
Oh weak romantic one, with love!
With love! With love! With love!
Damn the flowers and the beards (oh wonderful!)
Oh, cry a bit now chorus, cry.
Cry me rivers cry you rivers cry all of us rivers.

There there there is the rub rub rub!
That I am goddess queen of all that is the universe
And all that is not the universe
Is a given fact and true beyond sciences' refutations
And religions' gobbledygook;
But that you are too, that you are also the supreme
Being is what I know because I know
Your heart breaks just like mine.
And so as we look out tonight upon the day-
And-all, we share it to not pause too long in
Our god preening but to get on
Simply creating the universe.

copyright 1999, all rights reserved
Miranda Joan Howe
(used with permission)