Tag: fiction


they say I talk too much
and I’m inclined to agree.
perhaps I’ll
sew my chapped lips shut,
show them the scorpion etched
on my shoulder first and no one
has ever seen my childhood home.

1.
but I’m compromised
by the simple fact I think
I might be a ghost so I’m
always checking mirrors
and calling 911, waiting for
the fireman to touch my arm.
they say
“your leg is not numb, ma’am.”

but I can’t be sure so I make
him touch it again.

2.

one trick is never tell them
anything. I like my men
to think I wait in lonely
cave: ache
and pray for them.
palms clasped and reverent,
sort of rocking like that.
real southern too.
just sort of worshiping
the idolatry of shadow.
please.
they make me repeat it:
please. and thanks
for everything.

3.


my men remember me
incessantly and always
cut out of starry dough:
soft, head half-cocked
looking up at them
with servitude but
sideways like I’m
about to laugh,
then me in my day skirt,
hair covered and
muttering.
candle lit or twenty seven
if I’m out of time.
devout.
pocket full of them.

what a violent question.


you’re sunburned,
gone for weeks without
inquiry and now
a wash of here:
forehead fervid,
a humid wind clasping
the back of the choker
while your left hand lifts
my skirt.
thighs are soft,
reminiscent,
it’s the skin that brought
you back, isn’t it?

4.
what’s that?
you say,
looking at the blue and
black ring of shadow mouth
above my  birthmark.

it’s the way your jaw
bulges as you bite your
ocean tongue
that was just kept safe
and wet under me
before you begin to
pull the clasp rope
til the emerald center
pushes hard against  the
front of my throat
almost as if you are going to
bring the stone inside me
that proves it.
and please,

what a violent question,
love. 


“Five of Wands”

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I am  God-drawn,
celibate,
obsessively testing my edges
and binding myself to
new conviction;
my need for fluctuations
in behavior,
lifestyle and mood.
baths are my only sanctuary.
my only drop of still                                                    

in  a particularly icy winter.


begin bleeding with
every new moon
and begin thinking it means. 
something. I begin lighting
the sky with votive &

recitation. begin pouring
the blood brinmed cup in the bubbles
with angle, slight motive:
an offering–me; any time
or any way she likes
forever.

you say: define haunted.
I named them all.
starting with the first one.


starting with the first time
I felt wanted by God.

“lilith”

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  “I have no future plans,”
I begin calmly.

I am arms outstretched
walking nowhere but with
ardency so  I am labeled:
whimsical and manic,
a troubled woman
not to marry and
like a wound up
fairy, the character that
keeps the music box
spinning.


until it’s boring:
the repetition,
the posing,
the pink smile and
matching slippers
leaping from her
gold coiled post
growing nerves and
ankles that bend flat
to walk to
run. to crawl.

people like me because
I have no plans,
am honest about it,
resplendent teeth when
writing sonnets to the men
and a sense of fury when
reflecting on affairs.
I’m big,
and have wings that
carry weapons. 
  I hear in a distance  someone repeat it
      you use intimidation as a tactic
      to seize opportunity
      well,

I am blessed with delusive lips
and I also use black magic.

“seven of cups”

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in Boulder,  it was called “Unity.”
I was invited once by a girlfriend
and stayed.
we talked a lot about
life and mysticism,
the way currents showed up
for us at the right time
and I wish I had documented more.
like the Gratitude meeting,
I stayed with groups that forced
everyone to share.
they went in a circle.

I sat among them, mostly
men, always mostly men:
young this time.

I once remember sharing
how manipulation used to serve me
and a guy that I had reached
out to about death,
because my brother had just passed.
made eyes at  someone.
I was still waiting for his response.
tuck the errant hair
and look around
stopping at no one in particular.

at the risk of being
labeled calculating, I still
liked being seen. 

“unity”

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all day long

I vacillate between intention

and immediate withdrawal;

my habits, my beloved

hermeticism and the double meaning of

everything.  I’m

ambivalent about every choice

I’ve given myself.

even in completion,

I shrug.

let the wind take me.

“ January”

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I keep you in my palm.

I keep you in my fist;
squeeze you in my
palm and write my
name with fingerprints.

dotted drips like lines on highways,
designs with influence:
personal meaning
but lazy.
afterthoughts marked with

drops of you

you say:

     afterthought?

you built a town and

stuffed me in it.

my coltish way I fidget next

to you on the bench.

lick my dry lips

without looking up and

pull the hem slowly

with my stubbed, teal nails

to point to the tattoo of

the north star on my leg;

it’s black, sharp and fresh.

and

boy

you

better

run.

“The gauntlet”

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“love?”
flick the ash to my  right side
ive taken up spliff again.

I’m walking the block with
my syncopated thoughts.
the beat is long chord
& repetitive.
there’s a specter of a man
in my headphones
at all time and today he wants
to know what he means to me.
I tell him.
“I want love
unencumbered
by actuality.”

0

being obsessed with inequity
creates lines on your face.
your teeth clenched
with scowl and stress,
mired panic, just something
so familiar about lack
and urgency.
empty stomach. subway,
one headphone working
so the sound is all the way up
to drown out the right’s tinnitus
and you’re eyeing her up and down,
pining for her jacket.
it provides a catalyst to
all movement.

 people are scared
to admit a big motivator
to success is their
unremitting desire
for vengeance.
and money helps.
takes away the change
of facial shape.
fills halls, fills
spaces with things.
little decorative things.
fills lips and
money assuages.

and money goes but
comes eventually.
or at least that’s
what you tell the
little tree you water
on the window every day.
what you tell
yourself on mornings
the aches snake your legs
so you can’t make it
to the tea shop.
what you tell
the little girl shoved
deep inside the well:

hands out,
slack jawed
and frozen.
waiting.

“The Money Tree”

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sometimes I do ceremony.

I stick only to a daily morning
ritual and try to strengthen
some resolve with consumption.
I feed the cats, clean their
litter box, then stretch
and write my dreams down.
then I walk the neighborhood
to soak up attention . 


sometimes I just let things pass
like cravings or
weather.
we do that for others;
carry our grief quietly.
bury things deep
within ourselves.

 I feel the root rot and darken
without altar, water
or speech.
you walk in and
I’m here now
growing into a black
and robust trunk.
you walk in and look
right at me
but I don’t know
where to begin.


I begin to grow,
unfurl, hum
softly.

“datura moon”

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the second one I called
was Hecate.

I am on the floor
in the stained glass room
with the brown carpet
and the yellow walls
and the paper flowers:
bright orange, white, red,
dusty and a sprinkle of
musk from the places
I shoved them and my
dripping skin;
eighty eight degree body flailing
 impetuously to flatten them.

I am flipping over index cards.
the coral & lime sheet is lined
with shells–some broken–
and rocks, pieces of concrete I
remember picking up in Maryland
when I saw the perfect house.
a ceramic lemon bowl is full
of dirt from the catacombs,
a burned scripture,
red jasper.
my fingers digging
at the bottom,
tips filthy and
jagged.

today we are reading up until
we are forced to stop:
is not easily angered
which means I have gotten
past does not envy
but I have not gotten past temper,
or
I am indeed a wrathful cunt
so the second one I called
was Hecate:
have purpose,
some patent resolve.

and I always pause to look
in the mirror,
not unsure
just a tremor. old reflex
to watch my eyes change.
part my hair and look past something;
my facile understanding
of all of this and
my soft, dolorous step.

we break men.

crushing debris
between my fingers
into a nanoscopic form on my floor
to be carried on my soles
with each soft, dolorous step.

we break men.

“the incantations”

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