luminous red novae

Dearth and burning famine milled these
teeth I grind, the dough I work. As sure as
certainty brings ruin

(and γνῶθι σεαυτόν, I know myself as well as you). 

Hand-carved and scolded, limitless in orbit
 but frozen here in place, an edged weapon
ill-tempered, waiting for my life to begin. 
 
Come taste what lies beneath my skin,
slick sharp. Watch unwarranted embers
scorch my tongue--pale coral devoré,

the acidic yearning to run, the way my
wingspan burns in reds and golds, how
mica shreds me, grass-edge wounds me,
heartbreak in foaming

cherry syrup, kakigori gore spilling from the
side of my scowling mouth into silver rings.
Ice slips into my throat, damp and paper
petals falling from my hands, dull against
the wind. 

I snarl and show my teeth, I tear at the seams 

where my face is settling into lines I cannot
understand. I am sinking, caught in soot,
soft as feathers that stain me ever deeper

dusk, dust. 

Always the shade against dark

skies you cannot touch, still trying to solve
this groundless, grievous fault, I wonder, 

is it such strain for you? the reach? to reach

the light of new stars, the reflection of the
slivered moon as hot and copper as blood,
as salt as ocean and tears. As terrible as
time, as silent. As luminous as the oil-slick
that gilds each dying bird, as sultry-sweet as
the memory of your hand. 
--

barycenter

I dream of your thirst for flushed cheeks
and ragged breathing. I whisper these summons
into my own tangled hair, silver locks strung with keys,
as if in the words I struggle to keep
from their quicksilver tumble from my lips,
in the way I keep my mouth from seeking

a descent, where damned river sinks into this jaded sand,
a song I sing to the tune of October and November and on and on,
as if black apples eaten under cypress trees
and those long-memoried lists of love were no dream;
as if at my demand he will always reach for me, once more

oh beloved, at least once more.

I play at accompaniment, draw him close
to drive him--augment it with roses and char,
with thyme and burning sugar--each song a pale-moon reflection
of how I require one hand at my throat in challenge,
how inexorable in his love,
how he raises my face to his own, so coolly

calculating my every shuddering gasp, how I live
and die for every maddening kiss. These draw us but
the truth is, cold is a game we both can weave so clean
until mouths meet skin, always sweet, a sigh and a smile,
sometimes sharp teeth and ruin,

pretense and authority. He knows this fire, too,
disguises white-hot and trembling in a pale scrim
playing at snow-sheets and shade-trees, my sunrise.
Silk-glass spun, splinters left in my skin and so-sure hand
on me shaking all imperceptible
to any but the pulse I've swallowed, shuddering,

he knows every cataract, cascade, and riptide

running through my veins will be an undoing,
and still it comes singing, still I come singing,
still it comes in fog and rhyme and unmarked depths
to catch us, even aware, bright paper lanterns all alight,
a burning in renunciation of those ashes we already knew. 

No Harm

 

Tanabata, tired hands folding waxed paper into

wishes to knot around hollow limbs, foil-bright

cranes under howling hoods.

I am still plating fiddleheads in July, through

heat advisory heavy weather sunscreen salt and

not one breath without the thought of you.

Sweat more than tears rolling down my arms as

I lift them to the sky, longing to reach that cool

river of stars that separates us still. I am caught

in canes of red berries,

I cannot be submerged. But I can weave, warp

and weft, words and winding, each thread a

fragile song whose whispered notes barely bend

a single leaf on the slender bamboo of your time.

I love in shards of glass reflecting, in the blood

that falls, in the way it cuts, unthinking:

lacking in filter, with total disregard for consequence

or the curses that ring in my wake. Śīla,

paper knives and silk, stars and every anxious

breath pulling me deeper, sky and sea. Śīla. 

A stone in my shoe and a weight on my heart.

Śīla. A ragged inhale. Śīla, śīla, śīla.

Anemone

Even in love, permafrost. Cellared autumn against incipient winter, scarlet glass,
a blaze of coral against velvet night. Exhale your prayers, visible breath,
take off your gloves. Settle here in the earth next to me and taste the chill.
How deep my roots here and still reaching for your hands, my refuge in rosemary.

I want them sunk to the wrist at the harvest moon
and seeking, I want them tangled in my hair to unearth me, turning my face
to the heat that lights my skin. Season-agnostic I tend the shape of you, held close,
awaiting convergence. There is always space for you in my garden bed. 

Some flowers need the cold to bloom; you are the only warmth I need.
I have no heart for any other--let me be your shelter when you seek the sea,
where the currents catch their breath at your every whispered word. Lay me
more than six feet down, what's left of me lit against the ocean floor,

burning wires wound tight in my marionette limbs, tethered where weeping
Tethys rages still. Sing me from the deep, call me from the catacombs
where dawn never breaks, see me tattooed in night skies and hung with pearls.
I am only foliage, dark under the veiled moon, bright petals on the verge. 

I dream of you while I sleep through summer, lost in salt water. I will wait for you,
tend my garden thalassic, where the stars are always sharp enough to cut us free.

marrow

Summer is like this, stifling: last winter's yuzu still sticky on my hands
and every hovering firefly flash a whisper, just a brief flicker of heat lightning.
A cygnet, a signal, a falling-star ache, whip-sharp burn of want,

A wave--it isn't the rain you asked for, falling from my hair in sparks and drops,
a smile in shudders and notes and the rose-petal bruises that blossom in my skin, singing
in molasses candy, a bed of brown sugar in the snow falling from the AC vents.

The sun so bright it burns in every direction, obscuring my way home,
the shadows so long I can't see a difference in the distance and the depth,
desire sweeter than antifreeze and just as thick on my tongue.

Cold in my hands,

in this dream, I hold a carven silver pomegranate. Scarlet juice runs down my arms, garnet seeds scatter, I am bound in a ring of peony petals, palest blush matching my cheek. 

I bear white gauze into the summer starlight, I tattoo myself in woad. My fingertips are stained the color of your eyes when they have gone dark with desire, and I can paint on the mossy stones each shuddering breath that burns beneath my skin, reddening the pale. 

I taste toasted coconut and desert air, dry and scented with cactus blossom, I come clothed in spider-silk and pearls to the sun. I am blooming, blushing too. This year is marked in pinks. In magenta shading to deep violet. 

At the pollen-bright center my body lies, an invitation writ in gold for a kiss--oh! Just one kiss, to begin! I write all my longings in a shaky hand, posted to the wandering bee.