A woman’s yearning is a zigzaging, chevron patterned perseverance toward the heart. The heart is an empty house at 2101 Vessel Street. The weaker vessel holds the gold as it cools, fusing with the shine. A woman’s desire is expensive. It will cost her the old linen song in her heart. Curtains cover windows to avenues of guilt.  I walk into the prehaunted house, see my ancestors stitching samplers for Envy, who wears black sequins and little else. What temperature is your temperament?

In the feral rivers, fish dream of scuba diving in air, floating past our windows and admiring our most habitual habitats. In aquatic versions of The Odyssey, Odysseus’s dog doesn’t recognize him, sniffs another man’s sandals. Beastly, violent beauty paints the terrain with rain. I spill sparkling water on my dress, and a red stain flows out from my interested breasts. What commands womanhood but hazy procreation? Water wipes away our past, stitches a sordid future. Through the bloody koolaid, my nipples peak at decency like voyeurs.

A righteous ridge of anger winds through the plains of plastic feeling. Rage is a red, hard thing. I throw my name at it and my name slides off. Rage has a grip on reality much like it does on softening butter. Certainty evaporates here, and questions rain down. My body is poised for questions but not for this poison, this vial of unforgiveness with a homemade label slapped on it that says “feral righteousness.”  If you follow the ridge, Regret will plunge you into the sea, a millstone around your neck for every child you never had.