Inhale – deep – suspicious
under cotton clovers
in sharp seconds
a shiver – liquid skin
slithers down my spine
in wet pulse
I have your fingerprints
matched to mine
one – quick – minute
Time is essential – a sport
your goal
not mine
You kick – I lunge
inhale
a deep block
a curve over a thousand threads
stretched – an ultimate match
two pasts
two people
two moments connected
for one final win
A woman wrinkles over her chair,
soaked in religion,
piling God’s children on gravel.
They eat with her disciples
where bread is dry, yet
milk is sweet.
I stand by with clover.
I paint the children green and set them up
as chess pieces.
Confused feet step over boundaries,
but it is her game.
Her weight stomps chicken bones.
Her voice pours like gravy
over our heads, till I put them to sleep,
and the lullaby’s rock me
as I bleach time from my head.
The woman is asleep
in God’s arms, I rest at his feet,
and the children,
in their sleep, sing.
The top of the stairs is a lonely
place to
sit
buttoned up
blotted out
a
human splotch spying
on a beautiful
dance
her name is dusty
a cryptogram
enticing
men of solution
to
descend
she extends a maze with her hand
he reaches
to
her
one touch
a crushing warmth
he
enters a
twisted, bending, twirling
riddle
at the bottom of the stairs
from the bottom
of a
casual heart
where dusk sways
in
out
entangling him into her
crafty dance
maggiemaeijustsaythis 