Break of Night

Two sides. 

Every leaf,

sun in shadow,

green on green,

the half-light end of day 

drips to darkness.

Heavy-wet and reluctant,

water under a paddle,

resistant to what inevitably comes

silent and stealthy,

a full-on cacophony,

hard put to 

let go.

Almost the New Moon and I Am Not Pregnant

the night is darker by the day, and the

multiplying stars the consolation prize for the

stiffness in my back, the tightness in my legs,

my old scars.

unrecognized like Cuba,

reminding me of what I’ve known all along.

Homeland Security should hire the Title9 Frog Bra to work in Gitmo.

under pressure my breasts tell everything.

I am eating historical romance like Chex Mix, 

digging for chocolate; ignoring the pretzels.

Nonsensical sexual physics is of no consequence.

A little bit Moulan Rouge -funny.

Now that I mention it, 

I am wanting a chocolatier truffle that tastes like a kaleidoscope;

still I know months like these I take the flat-orange flavored Kit Kat I can get.

The near-week of hog wild thundering goddamnitalltohellIknowwhatIwant 

screaming from every cell has been reckless.

It slams into my gut

and turns me into wreckage and once I am weakened

hormonal abandonment taking unlatched-metal-barn-door-in-a-windstorm 

swings at me.

I wake up leaking blood.

headed quickly toward empty.

a warning light comes on

but pages of bastard children

sired on willing women

by randy men are impotent after all.

L’Chaim. Zochrenu.

I set aside my romance novels

and bad chocolate

and lie here bleeding.

Devil's Lake

jagged cliff gripping to air 

over the dry riverbed

a beginning

made for water

not by it.

mother wisdom

voicing truth

in clouds 

licking their

right names into the rock.

the eye of the needle

an opening in the doorposts

back embracing the cool of rock

feet flat against the blackberry cliff.

the dizzying whir of height and air

whispered memory of the security

of a perch between

a rock

and a

hard place.

the white of the sky is nothing but clouds and turkey vultures

voicing their dominion

or at least reminding us that they are the hosts

and we the visitors, but

we are not here to know the sky.

some say the devil is in these cliffs, 

afraid of being known, 

persuading it is better you go back to

the needling whir of cars and computers, but 

we are not here to know the devil.

my fingers lick the crevice of the cliff

with the wisdom of whirls and ridges,

seeking truth in rock

face pressed against the clammy stone.

I breathe the scent of time like

a mother’s skin

a cloud of memory and 

the intimacy of one murmuring voice

no more still than the trickle of water dancing down the cracks

beckoning to be known.