Children mature
the way multitudes desire,
turning from proud stones
to sand.
The machines take turns
walking me.
I’ve been ill with
wicker baskets for weeks.
Between my legs,
unzipped zipper.
Epiphany window.
When I was pregnant,
I lived wretched
as a butterfly in glass.
After birth,
I became a flower.
My stone
makes my reliquary
when she naps.
Far away,
mortars,
pestles,
beaches.
I will hide her in
the hungry mountains.
Intricately,
the neighbor paints the windows
with the image of his bare chest,
feral abs,
face that cleans itself.
His wife will come through
the white front door
with a basket of
feline flowers.
Like lace
they will crisscross.
and I will close the blinds.
My silence is a blue tapestry
hanging by the old runny window.
Beneath my tongue the dream
dissolves, disheveled, voiceless.
Where his feet go,
my soul follows,
swimming through the cerulean sea,
stalking through the scorching sands,
clattering through canals.
His feet make tracks on the moon,
his ambition a horse for me to ride
to some frosted paradise.
In my tapestry,
the design of a snowflake,
sublime and thick.
I am a marshmallow
She wants to eat,
Soft and sweet.
My long, smooth legs
A road.
Between them,
A cabin to winter in.
What is imperfect
In the sheer glossy world,
Is perfection here.
My soft waist.
My major breasts.
That soft place above my hips.
My cabin is small.
Her face at my window,
She lights a bubbly fire.
Tomorrow lies in my bed
As rugged as a coast.
I marvel at the sleepiness of my fist.
Where has my fight gone?
Has it left me for another woman?
A woman with more steel in her back,
a chest of gravel?
Tomorrow hums,
Brawny and blue and wastefully.
I adore extravagance.
He wants to tell me what to do,
I luxuriate in commands.
I am no longer holding my dice.
They burn in the green fire writhing in the corner.
This is not my game.
This is not my life.
It is time to surrender.
I have a pink envelope.
Inside,
an illegible letter to the lusts of love,
and a silver pendant.
Above my furtive seekings,
my want soaked lace,
my cutlery colored currency,
The Watchmaker mends his watch,
The gears our teeth gnashed.
In the kitchen at the homey table
My hands read Molière.
Does the rain ever rise up?
