There is just love

Among the strange hinterlands of neither young nor old

lies many adrift woman

mistaken for 28 by gum-chewing taxi driver

feeling ancient climbing steps, taking two at once

age is a permutation moving through blood and time

without oxygen it holds no discernible value

she could be your lover with her handfuls of thick hair held up by gravity of want

she could be your mother, stooping to ensure your coat is buttoned

her soft hands can be conductor, nurturer, passionate or flat for querying

why she must be contained at all in any type of jar or bottle

sent out to sea in glass of blue and green she sees all there is

and upon her return announces

she will thus forth be no age, no ones claim

but her own, velvet centered self

delirious of less nouns to describe her

she is neither straight, octagonal nor completely curved

she is a finely tuned instrument, played softly she can produce music

why should she apologize to women who cut their hair off in sharp buzz cuts

for keeping hers long enough to climb or why she wears dresses and heals

it is her weft, no more no less

and she doesn’t judge you for your penchant for masculine women or you for

your need of feminine men

why then tell her she is breaking the code by being who she’s always been

a woman who loves women

in all their unraveling glory

surely it is that loose dance around the maypole

when they were girls, rushing to catch the others crown

daisies so fragile in hot sweating palms

she saw the design then, of them all, like a quilt of differing

shapes ready to take to air

hers sought a reflection of herself in the depths

of what it is to be woman

that small crease as she laughs and your heart

vibrates with something like a bell

the nape of her neck nude against sunlight

how her shoulders form their musculature while remaining

soft

if she could put such things into words rather than

cries and whispers she might say

a woman was both male and female

holding the world up and bringing forth

life while fighting those who would call her

inferior and simply a loaned rib

oh quickly, quick let us mingle with your

preferred bone and become one

in the forming of calcium and other

periodic tables you see she and I

are of the earth and our very carbon

is born from within and without

beyond labels and understanding

there is just love

there is just love

 

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The truth of you

Thinking you know your composite

banoffee pie or key lime

little kids crowd the glass of new American themed

diners in foreign land selling to idolizer

thinking themselves fancy if they sit

on high swivel seats in dark cherry

just like Rumblefish though you

could never afford the real thing

I liked an American boy in my class

he made baseball jackets with patches of indian profiles look good

had green eyes that held the secret of the desert

a mouth as pretty as a girl’s curling up in O

he couldn’t spell his new language

which I found, reassuring

 

to be far-flung

exotic comes in all guises

mine the continent of dreams

we drank our first root beer float with

long-necked spoons reflecting our mirth

talking about juke boxes and 50s matinée idols

the green-eyed boy said

you will be disappointed at the reality

and they will be underwhelmed with you

too pale for the California beach

too shy for new York

too weak for the vigor of ice hockey

and alpha females pick on each other in our high schools with growing

alacrity

you have no native American blood alas

you don’t feel white-guilt for slavery when your ancestors took no part

you’ll never be an American you don’t wave a flag at our glory

we have to compete and win whilst you prefer to scale a tree and read

hearing the roar of the crowd on friday night’s lights

you’d have made a lack luster cheerleader with

your neon arms and matchstick legs

but oddly and despite this

it was my destination to earn a golden ticket

ever since I read in translation

Eloise

The lonely little girl in a big new York hotel

with Skipper the pet turtle on a leash

 

Eloise

may have had native American DNA and grown up to be a good WASP

I only wanted to touch

the soft leather sleeves of a spectator coat

or see

Peanuts, in action as

box-cars raced down hill, stopping at soda fountains

those glittering children of fortune and freckles

 

back then I thought I was genetically

someone different

then DNA testing became mainstream

and by the story of my results I am no longer that person

but someone quite changed, a different race

as if the me who was me

slipped out of herself and through a door

that was both opened and closed

 

walk like an Egyptian I used to

speak diluent tones with French notes once

now the I of me is false and those

parodies of what I was, are not who I am

telling kids in the playground that’s why my eyes prefer kohl

they come from faraway where the sun demands

devotion

old stories without substance

revealed stark in test tube result to be

fanciful

 

not a pale African lost in tamed jungle of cruel world enveloping cultures

instead, the trespasser told generational falsehoods

paving yellow brick roads with fool’s gold

as saffron and tamarind friends with their rightful legacies

twirl in blazing color

silken sari and Rastafari, Persian eyes, Nairobi fingers

everything told was not so

ordinary and dull was your fear

so it becomes real

and what life bequeathed you

the DNA of inconsequence

 

a tendency toward left-handedness

an albino arm and dark heart

the emptiness of knowing

yourself

staged and girdled

for light fantastic

oh how it feels on your lying skin

like submerging into ancient lily ponds

reflecting bronze moons glow

into a hundred cupolas

 

you want to believe someone will love you irrespective

of your mitral valve weakness, your keratitis and first varicose

just like that boy who

seeing you hobbling in your veruca sock and bad haircut

when your father ran out of patience and cut along pancake bowl

just like that boy who

swam straight for you

sitting over the murmuring jets in the shallow end holding hands

until he left with his parents

staring out the back of a messy car with two dogs slobbering

and a peace sign pealing off the bumper

watching you diminish in rear view

as if you were the most precious saphir he ever knew

and just for a moment you felt

like all the lies in the world could not subsume

the radiance of being adored

for the truth of you

Reawaken

The things we hide on the inside

become necklaces

of gilded ears

sharpened by arrow heads

daring to leave the shingle

for swollen mouths of water

big and discolored

the sound of anvils

aching to strike

If I could I would

reach into decoupage

pull out damp envelope 

with large words and self corrected emotions

cutting through paper made of souls

read your varnished secrets

let them roam

beyond lacquered confine

of what is safe and secure

until they pulp our learn

split, break and reawaken

even without wings, chewing ourselves new

we can glide on thin papier-mâché tips

glimmering in linseed oil, to Kashmir and back

if we believe

Reflecting our make

Born inheriting jaundice

from an incubator world

nobody wanted to hold

the baby with malform

forehead elongated, she held on

wishing not to be born

till calipers force the point

leaving behind viking indent

brand scaring watery soul

who dreamed still of utero

without air banishment

moonshine, her first sup

on the mustard kick of luckless child

unwanted by chain-smoking teens

seeking succor in bricked up people

climbing invisible ladders to some faraway mount

not of tablet and command

more a belief if we earn enough

we can pay away our sin

she was a ward of one

listening to water rise in radiators, surge and grow cold

before her first birthday she learned

life is a scolding pecking bird

retreat inward like sleeping charm

wait out first 18 winters

till freed of snow you take flight

cutting yourself out of smite

the unwanted will inherit their cast

dyed in river beds to wash never indigo

the hue of their regret

O to be counted

surely one more drag, one more wrought night

lying back on pillows watching stars trip beyond

their pinpointed direction never clarified

do they seek their diminishment or

have they already died?

showing their skirt tails like faint ghosts

for weary-eyed consumer of bottled night

blinking as neon sign beneath liquor store

stays on throughout retching dark

luring empty hearts toward comforting glow

we drink because we need to feel full

starve ourselves to let bidden pain flow

cut out the parts that remind us how

we came in and left without touching earth

those children of no consequence

developing thick soles and empty shadows

no wonder then we stay fissure thin

in diminished light of birth

reflecting our make

as weary moon, closes her eyes

flits behind rolling cloud

blocking out acknowledgement

like a candle can be snuffed

between a pinch and rub

you are no more than you were

the crust of you, harder to break

underneath there is a word

waiting in turn to ask

why?

must we inherit for our legacy

indifferent design?