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.

She Would Know

I’m hungry.
My stomache tugs at
an old fetus, belly up,
a stutter in a hot month.

I think, I would paint her
like a spring egg,
or sculpt her like a chess game
where she could be queen

and cut off the eyelids of liars,
like I.

I would give her my hands to do with
all the weapons
and my tongue to speak with
all the words

she would know that she is not a pink
fluff laying on a pillow,
she is a sharp dagger,
a soft poison,

a prowess taking life by God’s
mighty light,
she would know

if she was not an old thought,
if she was not a small white stutter
stabbed out of the clutches
of my womb

she would know.