The Almost Poet

At the Prospect of Being Examined by a Male Doctor Now That I Am a Mature Woman
Indecorous! Flimsy! Open-back robe
I wear over my Tenuous Modesty!
Further undermined by the Male Doctor
Inspecting my breasts on the examination table—
My insides served cold!

No matter the Professional Veneer,
My Decency! My Propriety! Are violated!
By inquisitive eyes and hands
That scrutinize my own.

“My parts aren’t like yours!”
I want to protest, clutching at my Treacherous
Yet Precious! Precious Gown!

“And I don’t like that you can appreciate the difference!
You’re a Boy, and I’m a Girl!
I apologize, but this Doctor-Patient Relationship
Is as obscure to me as your Medical Knowledge.

Please! Observe
A distance,
Sir!”


Upon My First (and Last) Inebriation at the Age of Three and Twenty
My Sobriety’s Virginity—Wasted!
My Shirley Temple’s Cherry—Ravaged!

Bombed!
Tanked!
Loaded!

Red Vomit Exploded!
War waged upon Myself!

And then the Vertigo—
Veritas—indeed—Went!
Went with Dignity!
Went with Stability!

Ah, this façade is Solid:
Sweet, sweet stones.
Soft upon my sweltering skin—
I caress you!

But now into the taxi—
Taxing the stom-ICK! ACH!

And the Vertigo does Not—
It does NOT Go!
Nor these Hiccups!

And this—Hic!
This is how one—Hic!—
Celebrates?!?
And THIS is—Hic!—
How?!?

HOW, Indeed?!?
I rather bleed
In Virtuous Battle—

And certainly NOT Against This Rabble
Of BLASTED HICCUPS!


Awetomb
The autumn births me.
I am inexplicably ebullient at this time of year.
I think it has something to do with Life and Death.
Life surges through me—
as insistent and brazen as the leaves’ colors.
And yet fall symbolizes old age, imminent death—
all the poetry, I suppose.
But there is something about being born of the fall;
my life rising from its gorgeous decay.
I feel—somehow—invincible, cherished.
As if Death itself wanted me to Live.


Poe Tree
Bit by the Gold Bug
Black Roots
Black Limbs

A Heart hidden under Wood

Still-beats
Still beats

For his Annabel Lee
Out at Sea

To Hell-in a bark
With waters dark—

Dark as the Raven’s Nevermore

Ever moor!
In me!


Elegy for Emily
In your White dresses—slightly Mossed—
Your home under the Ground sighs Green—
or White or what—within?
Do Buzzes visit or the Grass’s Comb—

Or do you select your own Society?
Who needs you now like Women do a Dough—
Who stops for you to let the Wreck—
Loose toward Eternity?

I imagine a World of wetted Black
The Earth’s—Hollow—breathing between
endlessly Cavernous Eyes—

Once in a while—a Tremble—
of a Bird’s Feather Or Lovers’ Laying
or Death’s Carriage—will give you Life—

I would like to know—
What do you tell your Bones
Now—when you are—
But Dashes—


If Language Could Speak
you use Me too much
too often—to tell your lies
please! please! speak—Other—wise.

what have your mouths taken?
what thoughts mistaken—
paper raped by hand
what crimes have I committed
at your tongue’s demand?

I bleed black
Sister Silence take Me back
and let them—forever—feel My lack.


The Almost Poet
A new fear:
the motionless pen over paper.
It will not produce even the unhappiest mark on the page.

What of my former rage?

I hold it between two hesitant hands.
My hands are very good at being still.

Perhaps they have found their genius here,
impotently resting on my blue corduroy pants.


This Fury
These fists have another fury
They wish to unbury
The black, the blue
The old made new

These hands will take the tomb
And form it into a womb
The ash, the dew
The dead made bread

Fingers freeing night
Now becoming light
The dark, the few
The spark now spread

The hungry fed
The lost led
The secret said
The wanting wed

With hands
With hands