Scars
Mirrors burden her.
Scars she tries to hide
laugh at her as she lifts
sponges to tint them,
bury them, but still
they win, pink in the bright white
of unforgiving electric lights.
She gives up as they dance
like branches and ripple like rivers,
in winds. Mad daggers, her sorrows
rip through daylight,
her tears exposing the rims
of scars she fights--
if only she could shake free
like the palm tree in summer,
the birds headed for silver skies;
if only scars were flat
as whispers that trail off
into the vague-hollows of nothingness.
Brandy Under the Midnight Moon
Curling around the moon,
a black trail of clouds waves,
then lunges into the mouth
of the moon's face,
a string of black pearls disappearing
one by one, melting
into liquid, dry ice steam
coating the stars
with the moon's
hazy breath.
Below, we look up from our
glasses of brandy, yellow-gold
warming us in the moon's glance,
a misty moon gaze,
a swirling, dizzying gaze
mesmerizing us as it spits back
the black pearls it swallowed.
Far Off, Beyond the Frosted Fields
Frosted fields hold to a hush
as morning sun flits magic light across
the hard cold earth, waking birds,
all life that depends on the provisions
of the fields, beautiful farmland along a country
road in Crowley, Louisiana, the tree-line
so distant, but rising to the day. A dog darts
across the fields, full-throttle run,
hunting dog hunting on his own with curiosity
in his movements, his owner far off, somewhere beyond the trees.
Beyond Capitalism
She watches as he parks his motorcycle, goes inside.
She picks up a needle and through its eye
she sees the same man at a counter.
He orders a cappuccino;
his eyes widen
as he pays for it with a rose,
the cash register pops open,
full of petals and semi-precious stones.
Fever Spell
Shocked into fever from grief, she
and the whole room sweat
and shiver; the bed swirls,
the cough medicine burns,
chicken soup rejected, tea turned
away--no consoling or calming.
She burns into violet heat;
visiting stars recoil to their
places in the sky, her
burning too much for them to
bear. It's raw anger, this fever;
she shakes at the mad heat,
tries punching the pale blue moon,
spins until she passes out
from the mad fever spell.
Light Falling
My sweet brother seems to sleep
in the coffin my mother and I chose.
His face looks powdery and rouged,
the lips sewn, the eyes closed,
the hands propped, laced fingers
on his belly. His hair sprayed, curly
as it was in life, the light designed
to make him look angelic--
my mother and I chose the coffin
in which my sweet brother seems to sleep.
