A Woman Speaks
Moon marked and touched by sun
my magic is unwritten
but when the sea turns back
it will leave my shape behind.
Moon marked and touched by sun
my magic is unwritten
but when the sea turns back
it will leave my shape behind.
There are so many roots to the tree of anger
that sometimes the branches shatter
before they bear.
Sitting in Nedicks
The edge of our bed was a wide grid
where your fifteen-year-old daughter was hanging
gut-sprung on police wheels
a cablegram nailed to the wood
Coming together
it is easier to work
after our bodies
meet
The difference between poetry and rhetoric
is being ready to kill
yourself
instead of your children.
Time collapses between the lips of strangers
my days collapse into a hollow tube
soon implodes against now
like an iron wall
I have studied the tight curls on the back of your neck
moving away from me
beyond anger or failure
your face in the evening schools of longing
For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
I am fourteen
and my skin has betrayed me
the boy I cannot live without
still sucks his thumb
My mother had two faces and a frying pot
where she cooked up her daughters
into girls
before she fixed our dinner.
I
Is the total black, being spoken
From the earth's inside.
There are many kinds of open.
I
However the image enters
its force remains within
my eyes