women writers

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”

there you are.

Saturdays and the 1 pm
alarm clock on snooze,
the bare-faced evenings
in throw blankets;
languid, but there is still
a rabid tongue
during fits of sudden inspiration.
moved from sheets
to cushions
to sheets
to type it,
to shower once a week
if you’ll allow yourself
to feel the warmth

graze your chin, scalp,
untouched chest.
open your chapped lips to the sky.
feel the water
trickle down your navel.
do not question anything
for those three whole seconds;
it is the closest thing to orgasm
you can manage.

it has been a tough change in seasons:
costuming yourself in grin,
tights and boots;
you vulnerable, kid?
an expansive blankness
still drives your body around
to pick up soy milk for breakfast.

finish something you started.

there you are,
you cooing cobra.
the chills that almost ate
me: winter. several
in a row.
the darkness and introspection of how
I’ve chosen to succeed:
lone and stolid
Two of Swords.
thanking my institutions
for showing me how to carve
pure copper into
green or something sharp to hold,
the likelihood that two things
look identical enough
to both be chosen,
that I will learn the
ways of mask
and holster; unfrozen
and burgeoning.

there you finally are.

“rage”