they won’t see us coming
we’ll crawl out their left eye
they won’t know what hit ‘em
we’ll be the bit of milk
spurting out from the areola
the wrong hole o
we’ll be the thing
that squirms on the tile
in a way that makes them
take out the cudgel
 

why would you want
to leave your people
the voice of the serpent
asked me
why would you want to
go to a land
where anytime you saw
one of your people
both of you would dance
I will come back I said
once I have forgotten
that I e’er once called
my people
my people
 

a young woman pregnant
with a baby girl
was caught in the rain
made a left turn too early
a young man in a naval uniform
with eyes crossed
was peeing off the dock
I made the pregnant woman holy
I got the navy man’s navy eyes
together with me
the three of us
we form a triangle
that’s how I know
always which way is north even tho
that’s not where I’m a-going
 

is it the voice of the serpent
asked that you think
when you come back
you will save your people?
no serpent I plucked the pearls
off of my chest
no one can save them
but themselves
you taught me this don’t you
remember? my people
are addicted my people
they continue each day
to poison themselves
leaving my people behind
 

has allowed me for the first time
to completely love my people
to hear them for the first time
don’t you remember serpent?
this is poison, child, do not drink of it
to me you whispered
as I almost faltered that last time
holding up what I believed
was a cup of water
when there then I sat
as my corona became visible
to me and anyone else
who happened to be around
for the first time
 

they put time into the grass
they put time into my eyes
when I woke up I thought
I would be ready to ask
the mountain what
I should now leave behind
what I ought now only carry forth
the mountain said babe
the mountain said babe
 

my whole life I begged
you to come with me
I was made to seem foreign
to you and tho always
deep down I knew this
otherwise I would not have
gone so far into you
I learned to learn
a thing from every mistake
from every lie
now I can’t even hear ‘em
when they’re a-begging
 

babe it’s not because I’m callous
but just that finally
when I least believe
in a revolution that happens
when you aren’t fastened
together by iron
I became ungovernable
trust me I am the child
of saints who
the day they died
whole rivers dried up
and people use them
now to tell time
 

only women
only only women
only the stink of women
which contains eights scents
unknown to anything not of three women
only the intoxication of women
which contains eight anatomies
which contains three feathers
only women
only
theirs
 

something terrible has happened
I walked by the storefront
displayed with hats
a hatmaker is also called a milliner
babe I will never pass
the way you pass
through a town like this
babe I grew up in a town
not so unlike this babe
I’ve collected so many arrowheads
from my back
 

be careful babe that the longing
you inspire in others is not
an outward longing
be careful that the longing
you inspire in others
be not a longing to see more
of the world
be careful babe
that the longing you inspire
in the young masters
be a longing to f’ment
by light of the moon
for the veil ‘tween them
and the underworld
to grow thin an’ thin
a longing one can and should not
ever long for
 

I cannot ask a single thing more
from my protector
even tho you tell me
my protector lives to serve me
my protector longs to be summoned
forth to me
as long as I hold up banners
in the name of my protector
as long as I make promises
to my protector
promises which I could keep
 

I cannot recognize your voice
the voice of the serpent
says which I believe
is not meant to wound me
personally but is meant to wound me
spiritually as though these two
ways of wounding did not cohere
 

I will never stop grieving
what we have lost
but I have stopped
grieving the grief I cannot
give to the ones to come
which I must tell you
feels like the heaviest denial
a denial necessary
to look at the long road ahead
and be strong—
 

I cannot recognize your voice
the voice of the serpent
says but shouldn’t you know me
better than serpent that?
it was either your face or mine
edged brutally
into the silver cloche
no angel with french braids
yes wild nicotine vagina
 

if you had a jar like we had
a jar full of pennies nickels and quarters
if you had a jar like we had
if you got the wrappings from the teller
after a days work ravenous
when the jar was empty as a flute
 

there were people I met
along the way people
whose faces looked like postcard
faces with their eyes hole punched
out it became harder and harder
to find people who wouldn’t expect
you to talk people who you could trust
 

I was nowhere in particular
along my journey
no more or less devout
than at any other weighing
point along my journey
the time I saw two officials
one an official of the enforcement
of safety and
one an official of the enforcement
of mints
they were chained to each other
because it is harder
to get rid
of two bodies than one
because they had never seen
a wall move
 

babe you taught me so well
things I knew deep down
but always found my tongue
twisted up or sliced in half
too complicated to open my mouth
babe with you I could take on anyone
babe I know there are people there
dying twisted up sliced in half
getting kicked down
you are not babe my enemy
tho soon we will cease
to understand each other
I have walked backwards
the front is inside me now
 

I had almost touched you
my knees
out at the corner
in a wide open space
without corners
after morning had been gone
but not in the afternoon
either before evening
had come and also
deep into the night
on a table
left on the road
for anyone to take
 

I must not call you
as you leave you are when
as you are leaving each time
your leaving
me is always where I am
I am not a lamp
I have been a chair
with the window open
I have kissed your face
and not with any part of my
earthly body
a galaxy’s tissue
we have never been apart
elements of both girls
so I am touch
restlessness could not give
body the marsh it may have
known of osmosis
when I find myself sleeping
 

mother!
how I would leap into your arms!
mother! how suspended you sat chair-like
gliding through air
ten thousand feet from the fall
I asked you how you could bear it
if you were afraid
you said you thought of your life
you thought of my brother
and feared nothing then
mother!
how I would leap into your arms!
mother!
how you once held me
when I held a knife against my heart
and said
love! wait for me to die!
wait just one moment
before they close the door
on my face
and leap then in with me!
wait!
I dare you!
just wait a moment longer
I invite you!
 

 

 

 

 

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