astrology

I think a lot about my
own divisiness and the ways to get
more or away or someone.
how I mask it.
what I can do.
what I’m doing.
how what I thought I about
yesterday compares meekly
to the euphoric way the sun
hit my shoulders just today
and no other day will compare to
this feeling so I mold it into
tangibility, twisting a straw,
photographing the figures of me
opening the door for someone
on way to get my second load
and thinking, so happy
to witness.

also
I love probability
like
what’s the likelihood I’ll see your
friend again, seeing him three times
already and you never there cuz
I don’t set foot on your lawn,
your territory, not mine
to fight for and
what is it going to take to hypnotize
a small crowd and at what cost to my
well being and I was practical so
how much money will I make
if I devote myself entirely
to one thing vs. side things
and how honestly bad I
crave the hustle
but also I would like to crave stability
and statistically speaking,
we have to look at patterns,
not just equations but
trends so then here comes
more of the past.
I’m real used to it:
being three places at once
if I’m any less than nine.

II. (uranus in sagittarius in fifth house)

I derive so much from one word.
The license plate that careened into the pole
instead of me that night read
“ prisons” and
I knew instinctively how he felt and
tonight I’ll do:

a spring equinox meditation.
brush my teeth.
cut grapefruit for the morning
and ride the waiting out
pay homage to my Pluto;
my twelfth house of self undoing.
i’m becoming a panacea of my own:
memory, tincture, flowers everywhere,
the fuss of first love never leading anywhere but
here in another meditation
on the river walk
and

draw my poems out of the older sutures:
undo, redress, pamper the wounds .
think about it.
send you a letter.
remember the way grief sits,
unsettled, right after dusk,
right under your chest,
right under your breath:
a blue river from your fingers.
send you that letter
with my wounds
pasted
in the margins.

reminding you to
think about it

pay homage to your Venus.
she is out,
casting cars into ditches
while you cautiously watch the lights
change.
you are holding selenite in your pocket,
standing where they
are now sitting and wilting
in screams, the way you asked:
one more chance please

you snap and they lose their
breath just like that.

“prisons” or “Venus in the 12th House”

I am giant:
strong legs, flexed tonsils,
tight back from climbing your forearms
to get to your mouth. my nails are
filed and
scratching at your chest
on the way there to let your home
know what I own.
I compromise but I am
never quiet.

I’m full of bargains:
one dollar books and yesterday’s makeup,
hair knotted with century old lesions and
previous engagements so I
shave it off every chance I get.
try to forgive myself for
such large displays of
arrogance.
you want me to comfort you in
cadence and I obey it
deriving satisfaction with the way my voice
sounds as I practice inflection,
ending my prose in pointed questions
you will have to answer,
the pleasure of seeing my mask unfold
on screen i’m paralyzed in heat
so I often freeze when confronted
but in between I leave
sweet, murmured ellipses
all over your body.

but know
I’m a noose so tight you try wearing me
like a loose fitting garment
or just one hard day’s night,
I might flinch and
boy, I might hang
you.

“Scorpio in South Node, natal”

* i am inviolable. (done)
*how to be a goddess: write it.
*how to be a warrior: continue on with life (editing).
*how to be a secret: write it.
*be a maze: write it.
*be a question mark: write it.
* become a smile.

“Pallas in Gemini” or “Using Charts”

I couldn’t stand the sight of me
so I watched the willows
perfect their melancholy
some days

when I walked
to the edge of the city and back.
they carried it naturally
and I tried passing windows
without looking at my face.
it’s dark at four and
forget about the moonlight,
or a headlight
or my sun lamp.
my body sees no glare or
person and
my head is drawn
in hoods.
I am their winter rival.

my pores were lined with bentonite
and steam and suffered
prayer; a nihilist effort’s
worth so my skin was
exfoliated but my heart
was still blood-thirsty
in knots.
Nana’s rosary draped across my wrists
and most of my fingers stayed crossed
to become a space that contains little breaths
of God personified.
I scrubbed the dirt from every inch
of my scalp,
the bridge of my nose,
under my elbows,
my kneecaps.
any crack that light could fit
I tried to rinse it first.

sometimes I took the long way to the store.
29 degrees and someone drew a giant sun
blanketing a tulip garden
on the side of a wall in an effort to,
I only assume,
preserve summer and cure their own
raging seasonal affective disorder.
I focused on the colors.
tried to pay attention to the subtle shift in greens
as the stems got closer to photosynthesis,
the yellow stamen, orange petals,
tint of turquoise in the grove of trees
hovering in the distance,
the way everything tilted towards the right
on instinct
with no speaking masters
and no shadows beneath them.

I leaned left towards your block
focused on feeling the weather change in my tights
and mock wool mini skirt
in hopes it would
cure my malingering,
would halt my bloodlust,
my persistent inner child
bleating with her hands out
looking for touch and I am
suddenly spades out in your dead garden and
running forward,
something pinned between
my teeth:

lines, the way that
pauses form a book,
my thirteenth draft
to you.

“Saturn returns”