The Passage

The dragon doesn’t wake with the sun.  It is warmed
through mock light, on an affected cove.  It looks
like it could be made of mopani,
but he cannot tell colors
what they should be
and what they are not.

I left him a note, this morning, by his glass house.
In his rest, he inhaled the pushed warm air
that circulates my blood each night.
I promised him Aspen and Cabbage and
my return.

I am late.  I am always pushing the clock
into my lungs, back to my cycle,
back to little hands and little
feet swirling around
a glass house,
tearing cabbage for a dragon that
constantly stares at me.

I Love Her More

She has a name hanging
in a back orchard somewhere.

Cowbells are ringing. I gave it up
like an omelet to a woman married
to perfection.

I am missing limbs for limbs,
heart for heart. Who am I to promise
life to another broken life?

Her name stands on a balance beam
between two tongues, heated tongues,
a melting puddle of ownership.
Where did she come from?
Where does she belong?

Tug-of-war. I own her more.
Someone who should have been born
is hanging in a back orchard somewhere.

I let her go. I love her more.

A Lifetime Of Love

pretty girl in peach giggles
making wishes,
blowing quiet whispers off
wild flowers
pick all the petals you
can find before they die

green ropes soak up air
from my lungs
I wish
I wish in silence
not for me – I am done

but for a lifetime of
blowing kisses in
spring winds,
making giggles grow faster
than wild flowers
and petals that live forever in
the yellow sunburst around
your pupils

pretty girl in my stilettos
wishing to grow and grow
I wish
I wish in silence
not for me – I am done

but for a slow life
of sweet summer banana juice
and rain
a garden of imagination and
when you are done

I wish
I wish in silence
not for me
but for a lifetime of love

When It Snows In The Desert…

there is no grace. Each flake is a poisoned needle
jabbing in my skin.

Every sting of winter is a piece of
her blue eyes,

and
his blue lips barely parted in a box.
I imagine his last breath and
wonder if it felt like Winter,
if it felt like the cold prick of
hell jabbed into his veins.

Winter has chained me to the past.
What is lost weighs more than everything
Winter has ever given.  I imagine her singing,
and if she sounds like Summer.

I know that I am here now, and I can never go back,
but still, I wonder,
when it snows in the desert.

In The Desert

June,
avalanche came with hammers,
pounding cradle into coffin for me,
smashing off these fingers that wanted.

(St. Louis opens boiling arms
while I drag these
empty things.)

I searched through snowflakes
to learn how
to carry rubble,

I came too late!
It was next spring.

I fell!

Debris soaked
by snow melt,
carried down river,
handed over to desert land;
an arid cough.

Dry woman are vultures!
Using neck,
hair,
steeples,
as steps. A pyramid!

Waiting for their turn.
We reach
pyramid tops
with them, our own tears betraying us,

slipping our own steps.

We fall,
down,
down,
down,

bottomless!
Hopeless!

While dry woman take our
place
as Mother.

Egg Allergy

Sad streets are thirsty. They have battled boiling
dreams since glue
drops
dripped on squalid carpet.

Slut!
Mixing flour and water in
three day dirt. So,

I went to collect hens’ eggs.
I stole them.
A pretty red hen was never
offered papers to sign,
to relinquish! I just
took them.

I am grateful for the Bulgarians! They
didn’t crack my egg
and eat her for breakfast! They
decorated her in pink bows,
shined her up for the world.

That poor hen. She would have
been a great mother, but her egg
was scrambled and puked up
by an allergy!