LadyWhisp

It is midwinter and the world twists on the axis of change. It spins into the new year and hurls sickeningly back into the old, and my daughter becomes a woman. She is fruit become ripe, the blush of sweetness creeps into her cheeks, skin unbroken, and I can only watch and wait for wasps. The child, ready to be made woman, tabula rasa. She is a shell delicately, barely whole. I feel a deep visceral wrench at the looks of her father’s friends, but what they know is simple, animal. My daughter goes to visit her grandmother with food, because it is an old, cold year, and if you want to live, you teach your children to care for the old, col

Convenience in Tears “I’m nothing without you.” “What?” They’re quiet words, considered. He has a tone of voice that allows no argument, makes me regret my incredulous question. “It’s true. Everything I am, all the things I have done…” It’s an unusual goodbye. An unacknowledged ending, but all the same, I have bitten my tongue to stop myself from trying to change things. I know this course, I know this road. It is the path we have always been following, and suddenly I look up and I know it better than my own heart. Far better, it seems, than my own heart. I am soaked to the bone by t

The Peace Which Passeth All Understanding This, I can’t name. Warmth in my heart, Cool, in my mind. Have you lost your mind? No, but becalmed it, liquid. This, I can’t know All the crowds, machines, cold patter Cannot make it speak, nor, By means of introduction, Imply a name. It does not change Nor change that around it. It, like me, like the foul air And the wet land, Simply is.

There is nothing I have really saved Of the first you. Photographs of groups With your face, accidentally, Drifts of poetry A story or two. Looking back, now I can, I should have saved your skin, Or your hair. A dirty chuckle, or A smile, would have done. The second you loves me And knows me well But of the first you, only photos In which you never face me Or smile.

In some crazy Blaring bright-light dawn A man stood up Naked and fat and swollen And shouted (As best he could, Fat heavy over his lungs) Shouted “I can sell this!” And now Everything can be bought.

There is no feeling like this Gorgeous burning-cold sweet caress No one touches me like this Lilts through my being with such affection. Rain is unrelenting, undisturbing. Wind? I am wind, wind is my dance. Hail is bullets through me Of me But snow It is myself condensed It is my beauty It is when people stop Stop. And gaze into me. For when else do they see My shape, my shimmering twists, See a thousand miles of dimensions, Of space? I have been forever, Been fire, the most terrible birth. Been poison, Been pure. I would have it snow Until it reached the stars.

Would they have been sons, These lost, never-become children of mine? Maybe they would have had Black hair Blue eyes Devils inside. I can learn, and I can teach, But I cannot sit in lavender With raven-silken angels Flying troubles at my feet. I am not in your arms – Kiss by kiss, the chances of passion Sucker away from my skin. I can stand and speak freedom I am sterile until I have. There is no rainbow above me, I flush childless. Words shine in my mouth like baubles But my arms are empty. There are no words bloody enough for that.