Dear Jaycee Lee--

On how many levels have we failed you?
We released him and this isn’t the first way
We raised him in a world that has ignored
A million screams like yours
A world deeply confused about pleasure and violence
A world of windswept unheeded warnings
Rising rapidly to the ether
Like escaped helium balloons

One of two is true…
He received messages that condoned his wayward desires
Trivialized his perversions
Making light of youth and possession in language and song
Taking ownership of what is not yours
Girlhood at once worshipped and defiled

Or…

He emitted cries for help here and there
Somebody taught him math and
Noticed the angled depth of his boyhood eyes too sharp
His spirit slip to rock and arrow, somebody
Saw his bloom wilt toxic

Both, maybe.

Maybe he was made, too, into
The manifestation of somebody’s darkness
Losing, too, his self, his God, his light

One thing is certain…

Many, many brows raised
Above eyes that looked away.

Many, many ears turned cool pillows
To muffle your cries.

Still raise
Still turn

Raise
Turn

Raise
Turn

It is the simple turning toward
That creates the power to maintain
A change.

It is the simple turning toward
That moves the light.

Turn with me.

"They Shouldn't Have Been in the Park at That Hour"

Woman, Resist
The pine-tipped night
And moonlit waters

Woman, Rescind
The shadows you grasp
Like a child

Woman, Recant
The the tell-tale dewdrops
Nestled like shame
Between your toes

(Safety is the carrot
Rape, the stick)

Lock your doors
Twice fall not for men
Who may hit walk not
Alone and if you need
Night air like a drug if
The moon screams your name
In ancient tongue CRACK
The window STOOP
To the crack woman STOOP
And crane SUCK and fan
The night air to you Woman this
is your Responsibility

9/3/09

What Do Lesbians Do in Bed?

It’s as if you’ve always had
Meat and potatoes
Which filled, or offered
A plate of white stacked buttered bread
Where it didn’t

When one day

In front of you
An exquisite platter, heaped and parted
With colors and textures that
Surprised and exceeded
Every time

Upon your tongue
The hard dark bitter of an olive
Unto you the olive’s patience
Bitter delight
Windy countryside’s layered buffet

Upon your tongue
The softest French cheese
Open soft-mouthed sounds and
Sweet grasses, hosts
To love’s bare-bottomed press and
Wildflowers’ shameless quiver

Carrots, potatoes, radishes, and
All things rooted in the sassy snap of
Mother Earth
Unto you the sass
Unto you the snap
Unto you the dirty honesty of their uprooting

Cream, spun of all the dizziness
Of a thousand adolescent kisses
Spinning
Spinning
Spinning
To separate for you the best to offer
You the top
Should you tire of the bottom

Pink, fleshy salmon
Taste of before the before the before
No-
Before that. Salmon blue that dreamt
the big bang
Eternity, to you
A toast

Meats tenderized and cured
Smoked salty like what’s always left behind
Where something wonderful has been
Death, upon your tongue,
Submissive

Fruits that seek the fleshy wet confines
Of your mouth with childish innocence, each
Particular in its burst and in its
Surrender

You leave full
Her scent upon you
Everything given,
Nothing taken

Immersed in You

When I reach inside of you
Deeper, deeper when
You open to receive me
Wider, wider when
I close my eyes to all
Turn my heart toward your
response

I feel everything
Everything that exists is
Where you open

Divinity has sculpted
Her perfect self-portrait
Within your womb

My access?
The deepest privilege
Finest opportunity
Most delicate of graces

My spirit stoops and sighs
Wet with gratitude

8/8/09

Institution

It is the crumble of your thoughts
The ruthless crackle
Like endless gift wrap unwrapping
unwrapping
unwrapping
Cruel
The absence of gift

Mine the mother’s ears

This tangle of ideas
Forgotten fishline within you

Your mind an island
A senseless maze

Your day
Your life
Obsession and withdrawl

Cruel
The hand of Father Time
Forbids you my breast forever

threads

last night I spread my disappointments thin
quick firm strokes of memory my rolling pin
admiring the delicate expanse therein
saw enough to cover seven women

thought of seven women known to me
one left for dead beneath a tree
two broken upon a father’s knee
three coerced of her own virginity
four from an ex infected, intentionally
five remembers nothing, save lost memory
six brother dearest took for free
seven told no one, not even me

last night I spread our disappointments thin
dreamt a hand in mine, skin on skin
arms and fingers outstretched therein
seven women joined hands with seven women

the circle formed reached round the earth entire
feet and toes sevens by tens raised higher
white heat of love turned eyes up to admire
hands and hearts and wombs of angel fire

each heart to the next in molten love did blend
pure liquid air earth water, wind
this reign of sorrow back to earth descend
to cleanse in grace every guilty hand

a new beginning born of here nor there
not past not present but beyond this where
sin stoops to kiss the hand of shame
who naked rises, sloughing pain and blame

it is in my name, in yours in hers and his, friend
that I bow my head to this fantastic end
that I implore you be bold and dare believe
for you for me for all, a heavenly reprieve

befriend not silence, she is a faulty guide
widen your words, keeping light inside
broken feels, but lies just the same
from love you came, in love you will remain

Foundation

I don’t think in practicalities, my mother’s voice
merged with mine in likeness

I plan on possibilities,
my father’s unspoken faith in me
my buoy and my foundation

He says not much, my dad
Just lets his eyes mist when they do
Mostly awash in emotion

She says mountains, my mom
Plans and clips and charts
Insuring and assuring

My eyes mist too
at nothing and everything

I am awash in emotion
with worlds to say

With words handed me by my mother
I speak the stuff of my father

Poised in service to the longward steps of time

Bunny Night

The cat nervously pushed his head against the blinds
The dog paced and whimpered
I got up in fear, an unwelcome guest
Peered out the window, we three
Into the still black eyes of a bunny rabbit
Our bunny rabbit
Posed in stopped time
All dark eyes and bouncing jaw
Alit by our front light
While traffic zoomed by and
Sammy slept pillow breath and
To think I have the nerve to complain saying
"Nature abandons me."

Custody

Dead fills this house when you are not in it
Your kisses do not cover me like sighs
Your ridiculousness does not fill my frightened crevices
Your silly, tired head does not collide with my cheekbone
God holds her breath, sucking a vacuum of my house
And I sleep with unquiet spirits
Awaiting like holy water
Your Saturday return

Potter's Wheel

There are three things you can count on:
sun, shadow, and the play among them
It is all the fall of light and imagination.
It is not light and dark, but light and story.
The story-teller always with the cool, wet clay spinning in her hands.
The war, then, is for the potter’s wheel.
The fight is voice.
Who will tell the story?
The lips of the story teller whisper light and cast shadows.

I dress you in white and adorn you with rhyme
My silver whisper seeks your darkest places, and occupies.
I am trespasser, gold-clad and innocent.
I hold you forever in the light of my memory and in the dark of my nights.
The humiliation, I cast to shadow-wolves, forgotten.
(My love, most merciful and senseless)
I remember you as you never were and as you always will be.
I allow the scent of snapshots of you to fill the room
(even as I bar the rough hands of real visitors).
I raise myth, life-sized, to your countenance, trapped in tenderness.
You will always be the child within you.

I am at the potter’s wheel.

I Could Tip You

I could tip you
ever so slightly
My view of your
gaze turned to catch
a new light.

The first time I
snorkeled, I could hardly
believe the universe
under the ocean.

The textures of our love
your scents
and depths
beautiful as each Hawaii fish

All the years
patient as a universe
and all I had to do
was tip you to new light

Sacred Pause

Sacred Pause

I don’t check my email three times a day now
I read poetry.
I ingest it like food, three times a day.

I don’t chart my son’s education now
I take inspiration in him. I settle my soul upon him
like a Monarch

The pause, our armor against worry and haste