- The Nautilus
- She lately lives submerged,
lungs unsatisfied, blue-
tipped and begging.
Above her eyes, shapes
move on star-patterned surfaces
and shame-flamed cheeks.
Breaths are checked; she avoids
the nautilus
that closes tight
throats swollen, yet
she will not miss land.
She numbers water-logged seconds and
counts blue-choked breathing
not a loss,
but necessary for cleansing
shamed flesh, flamed shells.
__________________________________________
- River Visionary
- Where the bridge meets the water,
she sits on long bent grasses in magic light.
To bare toes and closed eyes, roots and stones feel foreign,
scraggly strangers, lost dolls, and fibrous fists.
She leans forward and reflected sees a bald woman, paper-skinned,
who smiles with teeth in the near-darkness.
Her lashes are pink feathers, sweeping the river air into
gnat flurries and visions.
Her hands are gnarled and white, with tiny gills between
swimming fingers. They join the stones and long for time to
smooth their immoral texture, to subdue pebbled layers.
When she blinks again, the feathers have flown,
hands have come up for air,
and the root-dolls have found their home.
She stands on the bank and sighs at the river,
glimpsing grins in the half-light before slipping on her shoes.
__________________________________________
- See My Lover
- I.
my lover would show my beauty
in verses
and rumbly whispers
he would delight in my
uneven chest,
gift me with awed eyes
and disarming grins
if i were shy, he would
assure my mouth
a thousand compliments
and feed me graham crackers
in bed
later, i would leave him
sleeping,
brushing away crumbs
crushed against my thigh
II.
sometimes he would
mean dark things
by glancing at me
over his shoulder,
or over the paper
i would make these into
small inky sketches
with rough strokes
a long time later, he would
find them and say
i must have been angry
i'd glimpse him, then,
over my shoulder or the paper,
mean and blurred
III.
he would lean back and out of the
sun that jewels eyes
early
the light would stripe warm
across his arms,
loom cool on
his face
his glasses would be lying
next to a book,
half-covered by printed
sheets in our bed
he'd be half-covered, as well
and would ask me why
i am watching him
from the chair by the door
