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
.
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
.
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
.
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
.
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
.
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
.
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
.
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
.
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.
.
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.
wyrdwind 