Swinging on the curve beneath a quarter moon at dusk,
sweat and dirt hold me after working the earth,
exhaustions caress muscle, thoughts work on and on,
images rise to be here now...they are me.
Memory whispers through a cloud of hissing bees, she’s here....what now? And I turn, can’t stand it.
I curl on a cinder block in my temple of bamboo,
wisteria and sweet gum, look for mirrors.
Stars like neon holy basil bleed into waves of faded light,
I yearn for light, and with the beautiful madness of a desert
prophet I pray to the scars drawn on the back of my hands,
to blue veins twined and pumping around my wrist...
I want to race through a field of day lily and cherokee rose.
In the mirror, I stood at the foot of Rodin’s Three Fates,
my flesh screaming, my mind unwritten,
the statues remained, and me, cursing sacred names,
I went on in phases of iron and fire. Wild.
Drunk on the beach, with surges of kelp and foam in it’s tide
the sea became my icon, my guide. So I crash and roar,
every kiss a conquest, every bite of forbidden lips
like a wet curse with the apple bearing Eve.
I embraced my own damnation,
as if that were the way, but there are many gates.
Today, the Song of Songs and Rubaiyat cast
about and draw me in...this again like tides.
This summer night sets as a seal upon my arm,
my life stirs and boils inside me, ready again,
innocent blush is gone, shadows flee, and the bees still hum,
the divine entrails spilled and read as incantation: who is here?,
and I reach into my pocket and spin one more coin...
No, I can’t, I turn my head to watch nesting cardinals
knitting ivy in the trees, wish I had their determination,
always building at the end of the day, instead,
there’s no resolution, just the hope that I will change.
