Poetry

Am I in the lake where my bones are buried deep?Am I over the sunrise hill where my breath holds still?Behind your eyes, lids kept shut, is there a secret that you keep?Am I the one who’s been tricked? Am I the one whose life has been spilled? Do I lie within the wood slats…

In wolf-light, ivory gnaws through the rib cageof a white wind. I’d rather cross Saturn’s rusted rings, red-sandaled, a dryad with peacock throat and razor.When winter comes like a glossary of the drowned, you will find mestretched in mimicry, mocking the moon-wail as I bell my sorrow.We’ve always existed— artist, sorceress, priestess, witch, and whenwe…

The pigs are speaking to the childrenat the castle gates. The cows are enchantedby the harmonica. The petals of the flowersmake a tea to cure all ills. What about the sky? The sky is vanilla blueberry swirl with puffsof whipped cream, and the earth is darkchocolate veined with streaks of cherry red. In my bed,…

I’ve attended river baptisms in the Cahaba,church baptisms in Columbiana prop.I would’ve done a grand dunk myself, I think,had I trusted a single man to touch me.Only my first love I trusted and then onlybecause he found my body repulsive.It felt cruel, forcing him even to witness my arms.For a long time it comforted me…

We’re green and ambitious as money.Stretching, we drag as we rasp.We climb slow as blood pressure. Watch.Blindly, our yawns ache for sky. Stretching, we drag as we rasp,shiver, billow, and claw.Blindly, our yawns ache for skyspreading a red-threaded tent. Shiver, billow, and claw—these are the ways we encroach,spreading. A red-threaded tent—circus of hunger and choke….

                                                  The Albino,                                                  he made me                                                   Human chatter and history,                                                  they ate me I am of Mary’s strong armsfor the way she’pound bread’s doughsay they Say they,my eyes—not sockets—but twinkling blue                                                   I’m lookin’ right at youSee how full, how rosy they are?I have Lisa’s lips … and the thick, thick maneof she who wouldn’t shut it                                                   If only,…

She’s the outline of noir, lipscinched in an eclipse          as when her girlhood sank into sea waves brushed with fog,where the wraiths          of twilight women drifted unmoored like manesof galloping horses          through her night’s itinerary. She recasts them rib by rib,unlocking their bodies          from wreckage, their eyes kindling in Cimmerian shadeas they flow molten gold          through mythic ruins slung in…

A woman named Gloria tells me that all the treesin her neighborhood remind her of zombies. In my backyard, a crew came and cut down the big tree.My neighbor laughs at how barren our once beautiful yard now looks. My people used to speak in a language of words that looked like trees.The alphabet grew…

Body of beeswax, core a tough braid,strung in a pair as the pair was made—snip the wick, choose one, set it in brass,ready the match and the strike. Powerless,bless the lozenge of flame and its glowthrown over table and novel, the fewthings worth paying mind to in hurricane dark.Or, on an uncloudy day, done with…