wyrdwind

Sweet Dreams

Alone (?) in a stage lit dressing room

In the center I’d been gifted a wardrobe

Was to make myself presentable

For day one at my new job, whatever that was

I consulted the rack for clues

Beautiful cable knit woolen sweaters

Which I enjoy a normal amount

(Cats love lanolin)

Heirloom quality, every shade of green that ever suited my complexion specifically

I’m talking grandma called her friends, held conference with her ancestors on a night wind

Worked arthritic fingers to the bone for months on end

Just to prove the skill of them

One was cropped in a deeply lobed leafy vine motif, the green of spring’s eruption

Voluptuous and hilly

Tiny, broad spectrum hand wrought flowers in all colors flecked confetti atop its waves

When I woke it was 100 degrees before 9 o’clock and the foothills were, as usual, barren buff

The waking ghost town utterly without skitters

Everyone so gone to ground it’s the Manhattan Project

Unless the city comes to collect

Yet another dead gambler

An elder no one visited

Then, to add insult to injury

I found myself in the bakery section

Of a grocery store for giants

And I an ordinary size, the missiest pig

Just about died and gone to fat mouse heaven

The calories don’t count if you’re asleep

And I will unbutton the pants

More carbs more glycogen

I loaded my makeshift apparatus with every shape of enormous bread

And made my way to the pastry case

Belly up to some pan dulce

And there, by god, my subconscious dared to bullshit me

Naked as a newborn baby on display

Glorious and plain

Was Irish Butter Cake

(It doesn’t exist)

Which was the obscene love child of shortbread, angel food, and souffle

Not too dry, not too wet, tender crumb, light yet rich

Warmth in the cheeks

Gave the mouth something to do for a bit

Then melted, almost burst

With a subtly soured and raspy edge

That good good wubble

Was that a hint of vanilla?

Fuck

I’d rather have nightmares

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Mycorrhizal

I dreamt my father in the car with me

And I driving from the passenger side

Down narrow and whimsical cobbled streets

Scenic and green the way I like

We always creep past people’s houses and rate the vegetation

Judge the paint and pruning

Carpentry and masonry design features

Charm of the place

Prayed this man had the patience

Lord let him keep his mouth shut

Because he drives like a psychopath

With no will to live on his own

Every law, stripe, light or sign but a feeble suggestion

Every other person came out just to annoy him

Aggressively weaving in and out of his lane

I’d never have him aboard without child locks and a tranquilizer

And I wouldn’t be rushed, wanted to take a good gander

I’d never seen such a neighborhood before

Crooked grin of chicle cottages

Inquisitive choral sheet ghost faces atop lush swells, thatch hats

Some hills smooth and heaving as a pile of seals at leisure

And some bristled as cats’ backs, mysterious and standoffish

When I woke, sudden as white caps in a flower pot

My algorithm suggested a poem

Boy Driving His Father to Confession

By Seamus Heaney

Apparently, a Nobel Laureate

If you care about such things

Of course I got to digging

And instinctively informed my Jiu Jitsu wife of this newly unearthed feast

Lest she wonder at my communications lapse

Opened our chat history

To see she’d sent me a picture of a rainbow prism reflecting off a novel in her own hand—

A recent habitual breakthrough, for years I’ve beaten the Books Are Good drum—

She immediately pulled a live reading to sample this new fare

Get the spoon in the pot

Or in this guy’s case, the stinky well that is dark and good

Literally a toddler tugging you along

Showing you his favorite toys and it’s critters, danger bits, rocks and dirt

Squish, squish, smear, squish

Mommy I made a muck soup

Daddy is crying and I am Uncomfortable

Am I a Man Yet?

How Bout Now?

Tex-tures and spe-ci-fic sounds

Big chest me gusta about bogs

Don’t get him started on potatoes

Aside from being arguably the most complex and intimidating of all ancient languages

God tier oral tradition

Percussive trailing verb complexes like a volley of raindrops are its primary descriptors

How every expression is extremely intricate

So a body knows with circumnavigational star chart precision

When and where and in what fashion it travels

Sings the marrow of its port of origin

Rotten or not

The movement of the heavens and much below that

No distance one could wander without knowing home again

Words were feelings long before they were phonics

Be still my heart, or perhaps be quick

His work is that but in the English

Chasing phantoms in his reflections but a boy

Never looks as smart as when his mama dressed him

Anyways, she chose Mid-Term Break

And reported back to me forthwith in tears

Shit, I read that one earlier and went nope find a different one to share

Cat’s out of the bag, reckon it’s better the bomb go off first

Luckily, they go together

.

Holes

Sometimes it was fried biscuit spheres rolled in cinnamon sugar

Long past bedtime listening to Celine Dion

Other times it was furniture flying into the siding

Or sometimes a fist

When work woke him at 1am

Or the family dog shrieking and cowering

As he beat it with a chewed up extension cord

And soon they all knew well enough to run to my bed for cover

In split seconds

My father was full of surprises

Once, he asked if I wanted to go for a ride

And the backs of my thighs itched from the upholstery

An old tan Ford, maybe 80s

He spoke not one word the whole drive

Off on some chalk sketch of a dirt road riddled with hopping mice

Erratically whipstitched into silt swales and jagged drop offs

Clouds of dust

Deep in the shadow swatched molars of the mountain range

An array of metal debris propped and strung all around as targets

Mad Max graffiti car corpses

He got out and shot them

Rifle, pistol, shotgun

Bang, bang, bang, pop, blam

When sunlight turned the page on coyote tooth contours

Flipped like a folding picture book, dimensions revealed, sunk bruise and glow

He asked tersely if I was gonna get out of the truck

No.

These days he likes the drive through this old gold mining town

Always advises me to stay away if the wind picks up, don’t breathe in

Where arsenic solution dissolved solid stone into a fell forest of rivulets

Abandoned shafts and razor wire live legion

Heavy machinery the size of houses he once operated

Tires transported by one semi per pair

The job pays well, but you pay the most

Your family, your back, your lungs

Our true objective lay on a wild donkey pilgrimage section of Route 66

No guardrails traipsing much steeper pulse points

Off the back of the industry ravaged and shack huddled face

Free of the western glare, blink and you’ll miss, hushed as a moth’s wing

A thinly sprung waterfall tremulous as a single thug tear

Steadily filling this precious gulp of a cobblestone well

Leaping, sand buffed and heat pummeled steps

Perched high above the cloud painted valley gasp

Rare wildflowers and perennials, velveteen in silver trichome filaments

Even gripping sheer cracks with no soil to speak of

Haunting lavender and caution yellow blooms

Bees everywhere

Sipping their lifeline through algae gore

Green water

He can’t get out to walk anymore, but he still wants to go

I tend to the pool every February 1st

With small, tightly wound barley straw bales

Which release a bleach-like compound as they decompose

Harmless to fish, birds, and insects

He doesn’t complain or ask questions the whole trip

Odd daughter does odd things

Full of surprises

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Riffraff

She resumed going to the gym early mornings

At my tenderest insistence

I know a thing about toxic stress and somatic rhythms

Swirling grief’s sediment, don’t let it settle

Clot

Avoided those same first responders

Who had emerged from her house with bloodless faces

Who last saw her held back, howling and screaming on the worst day of her life

Put it all to the irons, don’t fuck with that neuroticism

We did become friends in a class full of jacked meatheads

Time and place that’s medicine

Rolled with a couple cops who seen some shit

Told us all about it put some whiskey in them

Called to the scene for babies barely alive

Lurid marks, ups and downs tainting their systems

Orifices gaping in ways they shouldn’t

Not uncommon

Once, as a small girl

No one met me at the bus stop on my first day

I wandered lost until I just couldn’t walk anymore

Past some janky 70s style liquor store frequented by flip-flops, toothless and shirtless

Kinda men call themselves Twinkie and Bam with Spongebob circles for eyes

The sun was so bright, black spots and eyelid veins

Saw the only patch of stubborn taily grass for miles

Curled up and lost consciousness

Woke in some woman’s trailer with three fans and wet towels on me

Still wearing a little gold birthday bracelet

With my home address engraved

Saw that woman doing jungle gym mathematics montage

Debating whether to call CPS

By the time she drove me back

They had only just noticed

Fared better than little Bella

Kidnapped by her mommy’s boyfriend for tweaker reasons

They found her corpse in a ditch behind a brand new and respectable gated suburb

Stuffed under palo verde, creosote, honey and velvet mesquite

Blessedly unmolested otherwise

Per the coroner

I hoped, at the very least

She got to see the trees before she lost consciousness

Her memorial is called Bella’s Garden

It’s a small bicycle cul de sac of clumsily painted river rocks

Because almost nothing will grow here

Many such cases

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There Goes the Neighborhood

Razor tooth fan palms offer little respite

To anything larger than mourning doves and occasionally a mated pair of ravens

Provided you’ve left a properly shagged ruff for their nests

A certain shipwreck rustle standing sentinel

Over tented foam, tin, and flaps of rolled asphalt

Slap dash shelters shallow breathed

Neat morgue rows under a moon mechanical

Its description cold

Code enforcement dictates every yard be gravel and rocks

Repeatedly drenched with poison

Chemicals not unlike those employed in Agent Orange

In concentration camps

“Herbicide”

Nothing higher than a four foot fence

The police need easy access when they come in their unmarked vans

But upon a time on those precipice evenings

Where the air has the consistency of a mucous membrane

The same exact temperature as your insides

And you a consciousness suspended

Adrift amniotic

And the only proof of life, that you be of body

Are the deep, somnolent desert sighs, low swept

As if a giant turning with unrestful dreams

A baby kicking

Wafting palm blossom fragrance, dry and sweet from their popped panicles

Spraying champagne colored chandelier inflorescence

Upon a time, when there were wayfarer fires sparked throughout

Nestled in anything you could squint at sideways and call a fire pit

Toilet tissues of flame stuck where blood pricked

Dotted the darkness for blocks in every direction

Fast food, assisted living, hospital, emergency and casino workers

Visiting a procession of family and friends at all hours

Rickety hipped and blister footed in Sketchers

With offerings of 616, Modelo, Tecate or tequila

Tamarind candies or beer drizzle, rainbow marshmallow sculptures on sticks

Pan Dulce

Or when it was someone’s birthday

And the whole family, littles to elders in addition to distant relations

Would post up right there in their yards and driveways

Until two or three in the am

I would tuck my knees to my chest, pull my cotton sheet tight and listen

To billows of laughter, mariachi tuba hoots, and froths of giggle drunk squealing children

Grandmas on a bench conversing in Spanish

We used to have Mexicans

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Occupational Hazard

Arizona can be a challenger of expectations

Get your 24 oz jars of local honey at the same place you build a custom semiautomatic

Chase with pretty crystal quartz or other tumbled finds if so inclined

Honey so good a random man wandered into our store like a baby bear with sticky fingers

Just to tell me about it and offer me some, ’cause he had to tell someone other than God

The owner isn’t the barrel-chested open carry chin strap

It’s the woman

Mohave turquoise emblazoned on every finger and both wrists

High dollar southwest silver drip

Daughter likewise adored in her image

But with fancy claws

Long hair, boho pants, big laugh

Learned to shoot first no questions

That your boy? Whoopsie daisy oh well

When her son threatened to break in while she slept

And kill the entire family

And save her for last

The cops, as usual, did nothing

He followed through, and so did she

They are estranged

Or women aged, broke and hobbled still nursing mental sons

Men shit themselves and swing on their mothers’ skulls full force

Whenever she says No

While she’s in traffic behind the wheel

Many such cases

You can leave it to the paid professionals

That’s not the big salary directors

It’s the barely above minimum wage overtimers

Missing their own family’s entire lives

Getting groped, shit and pissed on, puked at and verbally harassed

By the way, your mee maw and pee paw are vicious racists and also misogynists

Ever had to put a woman’s entire cooch back inside because it prolapsed?

Like a slippery meat balloon, wear a glove, minimum wage, no tips

Existential despair and bodily fluids in 10 to 12 hour shifts

Subduing assailants without breaking the skin

POAs who visit once or twice a year and Have Opinions

I keep my ear to the ground

I was the first to mask up

God rest him, my Ex

Saw unprecedented turnover in Memory Ward

Total wipe every month for over year

“Heart attack” “Pneumonia” “Unknown causes”

One woman didn’t have a DNR

And he procedure required him to administer CPR

Got to taste her death rattle as her brittle ribs crumbled beneath his balled hands

Concave as an old church ceiling

They have to break them, you know

It’s not like films

Another tripped and somehow cut her leg on the toilet

And he had to use a tourniquet designed for arms

From his personal first aid kit

Because emergency supplies weren’t “in the budget”

Near as we can tell, the offending geyser just…

Collapsed, shriveled up and vanished from the pressure

A baby bobcat fell through the rain rotted rafters and he snuck a pic

Big scared kidden in a resident’s bathroom, just wanted some bird

Said do you want her? Or should I call animal control?

They locked him in that building for months amid stratospheric death tolls

There would be no changing of the guard

There was no such thing as “non-essential” here in the sunshine state

Your options were work face to face or be homeless and die by heatwave

I got my vaccine straight away though well behind population centers

Because he volunteered with the first company out of Phoenix—

Can you believe, a rapidly formed task branch of an OBGYN—

Who remembered people do in fact live out here

And we matter

His buddy from the prison

Whose wife was a nurse

Let the group know they could administer IV fluids if any of us needed it

He lost 10% of his body weight in weeks when he got sick

Me, I just can’t lie on my sides or flat on my back

Or get up too fast without the room spinning

Also I may or may not have powered through cardiac arrest

Unclear, doctors are expensive

Throat slitting rage whenever anyone says, “I bet you’re glad”

To have work

Saw a thread that asked which unskilled occupation is the most unsung

The least respected despite being the most difficult

And everyone was like field hand big equipment jackhammer dig big hole construction stuff garbage man

Wrong

It’s anything involving Care

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Another Day in Paradise

Around here that means

“Well I haven’t ate the gun yet so that’s progress”

Sometimes we see vagrants come crawling up on the night cameras

To drink the scuzzy cup of bird and cat water

Other times they drunkenly piss in it

And what’re we gonna do, get mad?

Call the cops because jail helps?

We’re the only place you’ll find good, clean water anywhere in the tristate

Same low price for thirty years

TDS so high on tap it’s liquid brick

Cave crust gobbles your shower heads and faucets, left to its devices

Leaches a solid shell of salt atop tomb dust silt

Which must then be countered

With sulfur, blood meal, vinegar and occasionally battery acid

And a wood chip dump three feet thick

Our river frequently afflicted with flesh eating bacteria

From snowbirds brought their boats and reckless RV waste

Go swimming get a UTI or worse

Ass end of the Styx

Point is, station at the watering hole blessed with cinematic windows

Everyone is regulars

I call him Dimes

‘Cause that’s the change he prefers

A charming long-haul trucker

Always shows me the weather in his hometown on his phone

Indeterminately older than myself with crisp, snow white hair

General demeanor of a quiet yet pleasant house cat that prefers not to sully its pads

Or get too cozy with strangers

Keeps its feet tucked and tail wrapped

Wipes every last wick of moisture where he fills and also folds the rag

We get to talking every so often, very trim and proper

Won’t touch the drink

But his joints ache something awful

When it’s chilly and humid

Stove out at his sister’s house back home temptation enough

To sneak some sips, dunno who he thinks watching

Ba-something-er-something-een, rural village

A drive through South Dakota during a blizzard reduced him to tears

Warming himself on the engine block with his partner

His bones hurt, his bones hurt

Whereas give me -40 in max wind chill and I’m a brand new woman

Some kinda werewolf meth Sasquatch

I will boots up and Do It All

He wondered at my being a genuine local, born and raised

He’d never met one, didn’t know we existed

We both get the bloody nose in the morning from this arid climate

Breathtaking sunrises, havoc on the sinuses

So he told me about Sovereign Silver nose spray

Which he was never without

Because he had the—

Careful pause, careful glance, just a millisecond but I caught it—

Good fortune to travel back and forth to Europe often

Prayed that when he visited his sister at Christmas

It wouldn’t be Crone Tits Celsius (my words), his poor bones

I teased that I could go instead and wear shorts, take a swim

Really stir some gossip

Last time they thought she kicked him out because he slept in the car

With the heater on

And that she refused to feed him

Because somewhere a little local diner enjoys his devout patronage, rain or snow

His name first or last he’s never given

But it’s somewhat superfluous

Smiles and says he thinks of me now

Whenever it’s cold in Ireland

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Heartwood

Once, the Earth’s surface was dominated

By towering pillars of fungi

A faceless and featureless choir untold where to stand

Hollow fibers woven together

Attuned some secret resonance

When plants of greater stature but dim remembrance

They disappeared

But the very same tiny tendrils compose a forest floor share in their genetics

Feed upon organic matter rather than through photosynthesis

Just because a tree has lost its center

Doesn’t mean that its life ends

All of that was dead

The green, the sap, the nutrients traverse, the bark unbroken

Bulwark borders bolstered crags

A closed loop, everything that really mattered

Her carrying capacity uncorrupted

A hollow tree does not break, she bends

Consumed of grief, her mirth subsequent, vaulted and ancient

A graceful titan’s footprint upon any given breath

She is stronger for it

Did you know the Chahta as a people

Date back some 14 thousand years

And once held 23 million acres approximate

With a stable population of 25 thousand in estimate

Before the Spaniards peddled pandemics

We were the Children of the Forest

Come forth from our mother mud

We wore her color proudly on our skin

Ah but what would you white folk know about Deep Systems

Rape a land abundant and starve yourselves in the process

Think sustenance selfishly restricted rows and squares

Panic in a river and drown who come to help

Climb and climb and climb until there’s nothing left

Summit after summit after summit

Can’t see the disaster for the chatter for the patter

Fancy footwork t-t-tapping on a hollow floor oh do keep up

That’s basic schoolyard circle, close the fucking gap with a show of hands

Aren’t you gonna ask a girl to dance?

See her spirit soar a bonnie’s sparks, higher than

Mama’s gonna play a wild card

Gonna wear a ribbon skirt

P-p-put the pow in wow

You’ve got a Priest well I’ve got a Deer Woman

Rep rep rep Clan Panther shots all around

Tell you what makes a Cat 5 an orchestra

Is when you throw down a full house

Punched luteal phase now it’s crown flush

You whining wiggle wimpy with that thermosat

When there’s only bad clothes and never bad weather

Best mind the color of your coat

Blast bright urban legend asymmetric

Do try not to kill civilians genius

If she says dark doors then you rock rainbow, this time for reals

See any black better be on the rose

We do it once more with the thorns

Your ma don’t sport the muzzle nor kiss the cross

Come conch your ear to the sacred heart

Well these some paps enough teach you up for sure

Come pucker up and get your milk

Off a bitch gobbed jelly royal, fed real good

I am uncomfortably full

Might just muss your pretty whiskers, catch a dribble

Weren’t a man until I made you one

That there’s top shelf colostrum real gold

Only thing veiled are these references, silk tulle

Said take a good long gander before I put you to work

That too rich for your blood?

That too hot for your tongue?

Need me to blow on it papa?

Go figure which o’ youse a goose get skipping to the table

Have you full spread on your best laid plans

Fuck all over your climate simulations

Said pull your heads out your mud huts

Quoth the raven that’s me being polite

Tap tap tapping at the window and you fap fap fapping with your pants down

Well jig’s up son, the storm is here

And she ages in reverse

.

Depicted

Two things about Mexicans

They love a tussle and a fat ass

Enough ’em grown by single mothers plus aunts

Lapsed Catholics

Working class

To know biggest booty and baddest attitude lays the land

That’s the boss

Makes the tortilla and tamale

Has the thickest garden

Granny got hoops and a leopard dress

Point is

They could be lazing about like them red butt monkeys at a hot spring

Smelling each other’s farts giving each other rude nicknames

Packing something silly in their basketball swag

Adult men in Dragon Ball Z merch

Not even paying attention

But if big chains Ma decides you’re a problem

That fight’s over in minutes, don’t matter who it is or why they swinging

And they like ’em Coo-Ray-Zee

Don’t be fooled by their kitchen table complaints

It’s Alleycat or Nothing

Troubled Strays

Takes a few bitter rounds, scratches and baby mamas

Before they figure out what a strong woman actually looks like, how she operates

Approach love like dogs and porcupines, that’s how you earn thug stripes

Everyone still goes to everyone’s birthdays

Why am I telling you this?

Hold that thought for a sec

That’s my regular Danny

Owns his own blue collar business, hands callused badges

Jolly, loud, greets you with a face like a sunflower

He’s got two ox-necked tanks for daughters

Who look exactly like their father

And two deer-boned elfin sons

Guessing that’s mom

If his girls aren’t physically present, he talks about them

Always buys suckers and little treats even though they’re mostly grown

How he brings them with him to catch the fishes

All about the best spots and what all’s our there

Best fights of his life, we’ve traded recipes for catfish

For the record, I can snatch ’em right out of the lake

Using Doritos as bait

Like grabbing big boogers

All four of those kids are exceptionally polite introverts

he says he’s been big all his life, never ate junk or sugar

As big as he is, he’s not diabetic

His ma’s the same way

There’s just something genetic

Causes their metabolism to clutch calories

Like a down blanket in the dead of winter

Shamrock tattooed on his neck

On that note

One of if not the oldest haunt in town

Is a green-roofed flagstone pub with green rope lights in the windows

The beginning of every bar crawl

And one night, before I knew anything about anything

I heard some twangy bossy quick-talker in flip-flops and jeans

Call Ireland a shithole

Across a crowded room

Record scratch, freeze frame

See I didn’t “know” anything

But I knew green lights on pubs the way I knew Asian nail salons

I knew drunkards, villains, and servants always had a specific accent

Or else clownish gimmicks selling cereal and plastic crap

I have an excellent sense of smell

Remember, I’m a Native girl

And for the record

I do not care if she is the stankiest ho in the trailer park

It’s not her fault and fuck a cactus for saying so

Apologize. Now. Or else.

A woman stands on principle

The city was compelled to install a special crosswalk by their green front door

Lets out into an empty lot, just desert

Distant crack dens

Black

On the other side of the lone road leading in and out of town

Because so many stumbling drunks were stepping into traffic—

Like crickets on a midsummer porch—

That the first responders were getting depressed

To this day that light will turn and remain red in the middle of the night

And not a soul en route for miles, you just sit and observe

We pass, and I see they’re coming up in the world

Got a pet food truck sells tacos y birria until dawn

Some respectable neighbors with gardens

Anyways, I don’t pay for drinks at O’Leary’s

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Low Brow

A girl once said that when she was small

And scared of the dark

She’d go get her picture book

Showing all the people in a city working those hours

And there among all the serious, thankless, lonely, grueling and dangerous tasks

Warm washed

Was Baker

And she’d fall right asleep

In fact, sometimes she’d stay up specifically until she knew Bakers were on the job

Keep watch

Well you know my mind’s got hyperlinks enabled

And I may have had university level reading comprehension

When I was six years old

But I still preferred my picture books

Authors who get to the fucking point in style

Precocious is the term

The very first time I ever heard “Luck of the Irish”

I clocked the intended subtext, took to mean you have none

The worst

And the older I got

A certain texture relegated to kitchens, nurseries and tabletop nerds

Sword and sorcery fantasy writers with niche interests and soapboxes

Neolithic sites and practical magic

A basket of upended roving just waiting for the right fingers

Golden threads beneath the notice of anyone important

I met Her

You can rob her of the language to describe herself

But a woman is a woman anywhere

She is the primary source

And the older I got

I found the greatest gift of all may be given

So dubious

Only to those who suffer and survive the most

Because you don’t know who loves you true

Who is worthy of trust

When times are good

You don’t. You don’t.

And for most people, this distinction is only academic

Of no genuine consequence

A little acid reflux, a bad dream

An unexpected trip to the doctor and a special cream

Perhaps an abortion

Some sniffles and sad strings in your posh apartment

Which you can afford

That’s privilege

As for the Luck of the Irish

It’s like how Nyx gave birth

To all manner of harrowing crucible

The original Dark Night of the Soul

But among these trials and misfortunes

She bore Friendship

Day and Dawn

What’s more

The Chahta word for Moon literally means

Sun Who Travels at Night

A Great Mother whose house is clean

At the start of each month

And whose many children the stars gradually scuff it up

Until she’s got to clean it again, 13 rounds in total

Civilization is just one tired mother

Her own heart raw

Showing up to her best friend’s house

Unasked for and without judgment

To do her moldering dishes, wash the carpet, scrub the toilet, move the piles, start the laundry

Open the windows

Brush her hair, fold her clothes, take her kids to school

Cook and freeze extra meals

Put ice on her shiner

When she just can’t get out of bed anymore

Can’t be a people at the moment

Much less a mom

Ain’t that just like a children’s book

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Cloven

When is a deer not a deer?

They’d never kill over money

But they would kill over land

A woman walked safer among naked Irish peasants

With a purse full of gold

Than anywhere in Victorian England

She’d find a hundred thousand welcomes

They’d offer a traveler anything they had

If naught but a cup of clean water and their last potato while starving to death

And even so degraded

When young Victoria’s entourage braced for assassination

Her arrival met with a song and a dance

Ribbons upon desperation, waiting on a second coming

When is a Queen not a Queen?

What would she know about a woman’s discipline

Who laced corset by God and greedy men?

And not the king hugged laundress against slipped disc

Oh, she’s very busy

Water ain’t run clear yet, might catch the typhus

Same granny grotesque carved upon churches and monasteries

Because your Grace under pressure didn’t come from the Cross

It came from between Her legs

Where to put your lips

Still nursing the very mechanism

Silenced and molested your tall tales in the first place

Even given thanks

A woman’s place beneath your notice

Tending what you cannot see

Until exhumed by the spade

The Mother Wound is Faith

And when is a deer not a deer?

There’s a point of no return

Uprooting elder wood to lay a road to nowhere

So you can climb the wheel grinding us to dust

For numbers on a screen

Bleating population below replacement

Stop.

That fondant druzy diamond dust expels heat into space

Sets restful limit on fertility of body

And cultivates fertility of spirit instead

Women’s stories by winter fires

Yarn in the basket, tamale in the pot, blankets fluffed and beaten

The exact number of children she can provide for, no more

Her lover mindful or not alive at all

And when is a deer not a deer?

When a woman alone is an invitation

You won’t see the forest for the trees until it’s too late

Driven by the assumption, but her proportions

They aren’t quite right

Silent dissonance, harmony discord, slimy slip of canines

That’s not the sparkle of youth, it’s eyeshine

You approach with a CEO’s boardroom confidence

Because you have forgotten who is prey

Ill suited

You’ll ever comprehend the unforgivable insult

Of carrying your rapist’s spawn to term

Of that sick shifting baseline syndrome

Leaves her children fester fucking the same holes their daddies left

Sometimes a mother’s love is a newborn in a dumpster

What happens during postpartum psychosis is just self defense

She sat on a playground swing for hours with a swaddled corpse

What are you gonna charge her with?

Life is only sacred because it’s Hers

The Aztecs sent fallen mothers with full warrior honors

Fighting for the very existence of their people against total annihilation

And a woman is a woman anywhere

Laws and laws and doctrine caveats all because

He can’t say Rape Is Bad with his whole chest and what passes

For respect is

Who rapes the Mother should be her Husband listen

I paid good money for that

She signed a contract

Consequences

Are only unforseen when you’re a man

Gasp

My good baby bitch

You got that divine lineage misread

So here’s spelling in big block letters

I’ll even put it in crayon

High chairs are for infants

A Father’s place is Dead

And when is a deer not a deer?

When?

When?

When she’s the Daughter of the Creatrix

@~^~

Funny story. Right as I finished off this particular patchwork of pieces my sister sent me three photographs apropos of nothing. A pair of gorgeous black swans gliding through a solid carpet of duckweed boba with their six fuzzy grey cygnets. High contrast. Perfect angles. You ever just tip your imaginary cap at the sky like…Ma’am. Now you;re just showing off.

.

If you weren’t already aware, for centuries in Europe the term “black swan” was used to describe anything completely impossible or preposterous because people had only ever seen white swans. Then they discovered black swans in Australia, thus shattering long held and deeply ingrained beliefs in an instant.

Later, some Wall Street chimp coined the term “black swan event” in economics to indicate an event that nobody could have possibly predicted which only achieves explanation in hindsight.

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Anyways, if anyone’s curious, I basically scribble my stuff down in stolen fifteen to thirty minute bursts before or after sleep during my tedious 40 hour workweek. And I do tend to pay for it. I don’t have much free time, so if there’s a choice between writing and something like…checking my emails, I choose writing every time. It’s more about survival than validation for me, you feel? On Sundays I stay in bed and read books between naps. My priorities are basically Write>Gym>Chores>Friends/Adventures. This is also why you might find typos.