Of life itself

We side step desire

like the adroit dancers

we once were

light-footed, thin-ankled

defying gravity

in our keening

and still

that furnace

despite our neglect

consuming itself

continues to blaze

waking us at night

when the house is full of memories

and cold corners are no solace anymore

we roam halls bareheaded

fleet of foot

dancing in our sleep

to the urging wick of desire

for there is no remorse for people like us

we live only because we are struck

by an unsteady hand

igniting emotions like

all unsaid things

thrown on restless bonfire

will cast illumination and spectacle

among bare branches of old trees

if we could put words to

why we’d flung our very lives away

just for one night together

we’d be pulled back from the brink

the edge of everything

where all who are struck, reach

naked in their disregard for sanity

only hoping

in this feeling

lies the very thimble

of life itself

Advertisement

Grace

If I am anything at all

I am yours

as the sun seeks the center of day to roar her rays

and sake world in golden waves

as earth breaks apart and mountains form

beneath water like temples surge

as your eyes hold me in their sway

the black of them, the holy place

as life lives beneath my skin

only when you seem to exist

there are times

captured and lost

never truly revealed

beyond our understanding

a chime of circumstance and gods

you are the priest to my implore

a song sung in aching hour

the fingers I let loose my soul

you are my gravity

you with your violet and your indigo

soul

there are places so beautiful my breath is stole

yet nothing, nothing, nothing I have beheld

can take the place of you in my heart

you are the missing part

you are the beginning and the circumference

even as I feel your knife

I cleave that much closer

it is my ritual to seek only

that place I call home within your own

we came from the same place in time

I was born of your need to be eternal

without proof of life

I exist and I perish

upon your word

you, the one I turn

you, the birth of me

you, the missing link

you, the key I wear

around my being

let me or deny me

I seek despite myself just one

who will never diminish nor could be

equalled in my heart

for some of us are old fashioned in devotion

a thorn could not penetrate more

that sea within me carrying your salt

if stained glass were more radiant

if storms could pulse with pinkening lore

if the world could find words for such things

I would still be

bare foot running the long mile separating now and then

then when you were my everything

now in the absence of peace

hither no meaning made itself known

for only in your arms I know

that steady belief and spiritual home

strike me dead the day I quit my faith

you are my goodness, you are

my grace

Behind your eyes

When I stopped dancing full-time and entered delayed puberty

my breasts swelled like a lily in a pond

at first it was kinda cool getting attention from boys

then I hated how they jutted out and called ahead

like car headlights

slowly tracking, flashing, blinding

in those days of Flashdance and Fame

the three L’s; leggings, leg warmers, leotards

loving in the afternoon, running to studio

dancing with the smell of sex on my stomach

other girls ate salad and cardboard

threw up in the bathrooms

bound their breasts with cloth

I admired their long necks and sinewy thighs

the tightness of their waists and flat chests

my own puberty felt like something out of control

foreign and unwanted to me

I wanted the lean girl of childhood back

the one who climbed trees with one hand

hung upside down

eating apples

there was too much

attached to owning breasts and thighs

even his circle of me dimmed

looking at some of my friends

the ones with slimmer hips and shoulders

still in their girl-doll-bodies

I with my woman seeping out

became a thing of disgust, or so I thought

when I carried his child, my breasts grew even more

wetting the front of my nightshirt with wasteful milk

his eyes took in the sum of me and disgusted

he looked away

always preferring me hairless and skinny

like a girl not a woman

no make-up, wearing little thin things

someone he could control

so I had a sickness in myself

of warped images, desire and lost babies

starving myself beyond the pale

it wasn’t hard, I had little to lose

soon I ran for buses on the breath of feathers

circling my waist he’d say

you remind me of Audrey Hepburn

being tiny, I decided it had been a dream

no child, no loss, no lack of desire

he sexed me every night until sate

leaving bruises on my legs and arms like

vampire bites

but always turning his head away

like he was thinking of someone else

when he left me for that girl

who was dark-skinned and voluptuous and healthy

I realized being a little girl didn’t keep me safe at all

after that I never gave myself away

to people with eyes that looked straight through me

or hands that grabbed to own

a piece of me or what I possessed

though I had no idea what

that was

lying by myself in a small room

smoking hashish in the dark listening to

Tunnel of Love on repeat

I tried to turn my heart to glass

only my body wanted to be awoken from her slumber

a virginal boy, with no grace and long hair

filled my nights and my bed for a time

I taught him how

to roll the perfect joint

and study, where time ended and pleasure began

once he asked

why do you bind your breasts every morning?

they are beautiful

I turned from him

my skin burning with secrets

and did not ever reply

for who can disclose the litany of pain?

as it lies

like a sleeping child

behind your eyes?

She told me, don’t worry about it

We’re sitting talking about how we know

You’re making me laugh at jokes, about Hannibal

How I only like Gillian, because she’s a bit like you

And I can’t tell anyone, including you

You reminded me how I knew, I was still alive

In the video of you dancing, uncaring and wild

That’s how I’m reminded why

I know beauty

How women

Are the possessors of

All that is beautiful

With your downcast eyes, the color of absinthe

Hair falling in your pale face, cut cheekbones and grace

The switch of your merciless, marching intelligence

The sorrow, the humor, the passion lines

How you make me laugh hysterically and blush

Pouting, pulling on your cigarette, getting me aroused and nervous

Without trying, you command all attention

Your wit is sharper than a sword

When you didn’t talk to me

It was like a blonde flower, turning her lights out

The night was darker

Still I heard

That song you made immortal

The sway of your slim hips and secret smile

And I’m speaking to you in a language, I outlawed

Because he dirtied it for me, forever

But you sound so lovely talking in the fog

I know I have to stand at a distance, or I’d reach out

Grab the concentration from your lovely brow

But to be in your blazing aura

The tiny, angry, intelligent, firey soul

You inhabit like no other

You were the girl who woke me up

I’d give anything to dance with you

To that exact song, in those same clothes

Your then blonde hair, a chaotic wisp

The crunched concentration on your francophone face

There’s classic and there’s disheveled-perfect and you’re both

I’d take your hand and say

Don’t worry, I know the rules

But for fucks sake we’ve both been here long enough

born the same year

You got the small chest I always wanted

And you said you liked my eyes

Same color green as yours

Not narcissism

But sisters

Lovers of

Pain and hard living

We only trust those like us

Who smoked and drank and have to show on our tired faces, the weariness of living

Where boundaries are never crossed

But fantasy is free and inked

And you like being adored

I am good at loving

Sad, happy, gorgeous girls, with crooked smiles

Who hold my attention with their spark

Catching in the darkness like a skinned rock, thrown out to sea

On Brighton beach

Where we’ll always be young and beautiful

Me chasing you in the cold sea

You disappearing into green waves

Unrequited love longs

I didn’t know you felt that way

just as the golden-haired girl

with bleached French roots

didn’t know I felt for her

(or worse, knew, and felt

less than dismissal)

we are ebony dominoes

pass the plain papered parcel

our affections whittled and sharpen

by the smoky knowledge we can never

confess ourselves or pardon

to objects of secreted passion

so remote and out of touch

the girl who falls for

a woman who loves men

the heterosexual who has a crush

on a flamboyant boy

things get broken without throwing

why is emotion so deluded?

I will never tell her my secret

just as you will not reveal yours

in our actions and what we do not say

there is the truth

explaining the easy pain of social discourse

masking itself behind awkwardness

when she talks about the men she dates

I dare not say … choose me you fool

I could make you dance

in a way you have not yet discovered

some people hang out of reach

even for sailors

leaning into the confessional surge

I can empathize

I would never have said yes to unwanted

dinner guests

so why should she entertain a cliché?

girls who like girls fall for those who

cannot be reached across life boats

better I hold my green tongue

admire from afar

the provoking shape of her

the way she knows

people are watching

her sway to

unrequited love songs

Cadenza

What is life?

but a pinch

a child’s voice garbled underwater

sinking like stone’s cadenza wish

for more or less

but just

this round

made with cupped hands

holding cream in meshed fingers

lift me over the wall

what do we discover?

in gardens walked with made

 

I have been unable to let you out of my blood

you are the circle of red wrapped around my wrist

a memory of starting point

whistling in cold pirouetting trees

I light an amber fire

to keep you from passing by

don’t stop

don’t call my name

cool the snare about my self

I may recognize

I may respond

It was ever my way

 

you had my brine rubbed into permanence

I was pricked on the thumb

the cast of fate showing me our join

a thin silver line not wide enough

to separate us

the villain lies in that ache

birthing longing on your shore

will you pull me closer

stitch ever, the bind fastening

a snatch of braid

wound like ivy to darken

descended skies

in timerous pause

redemption

history said

Go back

years ago

Go back

you are not wanted here

this is not where you belong

walking behind yourself

catching the depth of your tread

hang up your effort

string failure to dry

you leave your hope here

take one bag

get on a train

without a ticket

without windows

and in your musty closet

transform

to the dark bird you were

before you knew to fly

to the passenger who came with outstretched arms

seeking relief and quantity of blood to let

so all that nourished from you could

fling you away once done

the fille cruel said …

if I could plunge you head first

into the brink and keep you there

until you swallowed your dreams

amidst river water

I would have done so

but I am paying the price of karma

for destroying you I must suffer

though I claim to be a woman of God

pressing my palms together as tight as they go

all this that comes now to nail me shut

the consequence of my cruelty

you may lose your way

you may be set out without light

holding an empty bag told

again

go you are not welcome

but I shall die first and certain

without anyone to witness

for those who seek to harm

pay the longest price

for their one-way ticket

the survivor said …

when I learned to dance

at first my feet hurt

they did not fit narrow confine

bleeding through satin

staining effort

blistering I rose and challenged

the nails the stones

dancing over hurt and beyond

you cannot harm what you do

not understand

the broken will rise

taking their music sheets to far corners

letting go of caged songs

fed by the nourishment of your need

to damage and quench them

their feet shall defy the pain legacies in wood

long the sound of blood shall fall

after they have moved the world

turning in time to the beat of

desire inhabiting the stage

go on, further than possible

entering hallowed ground

where all who stumble climb back

toward the master who believes inviolate

his dreary manacle

made unsteady by their motion

they are

you are

no more than breath left behind

when the dance is done

and lights dimmed for tomorrow

we shall again begin

without you

such is our dream

woven throughout movement

in swaths of redemption