women who write – Page 17

rainstorm.

unscheduled and I had been
comfortable in shifting drought.
avoiding the wasps
hidden in the grass
with my clumsy, calloused toes
seasoned from walking too far
and too hard in unpadded sandals
when the first sign of spring hits,
and my sky blue sundress seems a
sudden hindrance:

flimsy, strap always falling down and
blows up in breezes
so I have to keep watching the way I
carry myself around men.
I crouch and the hem crawls to
expose my left thigh and the
garter you gave me:
not the daisies I wanted,
a ring of bruises
in the shape of your open mouth
still fresh with conquest;
lasting impact of
your parting breath that
said nothing and now
just hangs there and hurts
when I shower.
wait

I’m counting cicada shells
under the picnic table;
a gesture of presence.
someone told me to stop everything
and I needed a year to pass.
I scrubbed away the last of your fingernail
but I have to ride those
bite marks out.
blinked once and a ripple in the sky
burst; liberated and aimless,
she shows just one day’s worth
of self-containment uncondensed,
without tension, falling naked
she’s black and soft and
seamless surfeit with mild
violence, crackling and
completely cageless.

my feet are covered in mud
before I even notice the shadow
wash over my bangs.
wait.
drenched in flood my head
is dark red because you liked
“subtlety”
and I liked demonstrative movement;
a hint of auburn wasn’t enough to show
blood with just a little bush
so I adorn myself with ritual:
hair dye and cleanses,
little thorns,
little kills to draw your
attention. my knees hurt and
all those cicadas are dead
so I stand to lift my face to the thunder;
a small gesture of inflorescence.
Wait.

open my arms purposefully
like petals of a rose exhaling
in relief for the drink
her master brings.
parched from the work my dry words had done
undoing
as they roamed free all over
your front yard.
God makes pacts with penitents
and you barely have a face that isn’t
my reflection so I’m itching to be clean and
fresh and start
again.
stretch my neck with pride to
to catch her drops on tongue,
bold with my repentance
and ready to wash away
the phantom jaws that bait me.
but suddenly charged,
the gray sky remembered
she held lightning.
and suddenly illuminated,
I remembered

I am
the dark thing
inside of me.

“prayer”

I carry tempest in my
lungs :a cold black murmur
that hooks it hums
in earthworms and writhes
to surface after rains
winding street lamps to
devour them like dirt cake.
I hit the corner as
you are walking up.

the light goes out
and somewhere near
a tire screeches drowned
by the sharp inhale
you take when
a cyclist scrapes his tire
on a criss-crossed track
and spins into a tumble
that splits his helmet
on a bumper and someone
screams: are you ok?
and rushes over.
an older man pauses,
turns to you scratching
his neck and
says: this city is full of
accident lately; is it another
retrograde? laughs absently
and stands still on
the flashing yellow.
your hands are clenched
in pockets waiting for
the red.

I am walking slowly,
wearing cotton sundress and
consenting saunter.
my hips are wide,
lips are pursed and
I am quiet, light and
diffusive but mired in
insides.
there are twelve dogs
with meat in their eye
nearby choking on their
collars.

I am wearing a blue alyssum
in my hair but
you will know me either
by my touch
if in enough of a rush and
close proximity to brush
an elbow with a thumb,
or the sudden sun I permit:
open laughter near your
chin, grabbing you
with force,
inordinate apology
for the accidental brush,
moist I’m sorry spills over
my freshly-done, pink
velvet lips as we collide
in front of everything,
wait for green or
similar direction.
there are sirens in the distance.

you?
you will know me by
my fang-toothed smile.

“morphic resonance”

kitten ears and painted whiskers
tumble down my block   in rows
rehearsed
in leotards and black lace gloves.
precocious     those high pitched
y o w l s floats through open porches.
TV taught them how to meow
for Kit Kats   Snickers Almond Joys
male applause.
one bends over to tie her shoe
and seduce the nearest father;
he eyes the crevice peeking through her
black tights.

she wants attention from her own father:
a photograph or upward twirl,
burning torch,
purr in his lap while he strokes her hair
without fetish
or just acknowledgment that she is the prettiest
girl dressed up as space cat,
those others are unoriginal, just regular
cats, he says I love yours best
and pats her on her head
and there is no offense taken.

she will grow up to be even smaller
than she supposed:
silent enduring still,
not awake in her own power,
her own body
like a stillborn tiger:
expelled with a tear
coated in the blood of her mother’s
screams as no one prepared her for the
slow cooked torture, ecstasy
that followed expelling something
parasitic and omniscient,
a future rival.
she lands on the floor
in a sealed protective pod,
fetal for always and
wrapped in excretion,
the thing no one wanted
like sewage water
without even a congratulations! bouquet
or a lotus to symbolize completion.

we aren’t worthy of those feline endowments
thrust upon us when we are playing
mole carcass on the doormat
aborted from our burrowed holes
for something more vociferous
to grab onto and finish,
our kinship, the lions.
we are nothing like our ancestors.
our virile mothers–
who know nothing of preening,
who care nothing for tail feathers,
they take what they want,
they don’t grovel at their fathers’ feet.
they honor the slaughter,
the one they started
before the harvest and pay homage
to the sky for the water provided
before they stuff themselves
with vision.

we lack vision.
we just paint our nails black,
and dress like witches,
talk shit;
start shit for derision.
and we keep turning to our men
for forgiveness when we are wayward
or won’t marry them
or stand up when they
crush our necks and they
say the rope is coming next.
we should be
stuffing our faces with the meat they provided,
learning fillet knives,
learning to skin hides,
smiling like shovels and
burying them.

“Halloween”