bright as the bloodred edge of the moon ifthere is a rivermore faithful than thisreturning each monthto the same delta if thereis a riverbraver than thiscoming and coming in a surgeof passion, of pain if there isa rivermore ancient than thisdaughter of evemother of cain and of abel if there is inthe universe such a…
accusing me of my lifewith her extra fingerwhirling in a gyre of rageat what my days had come to.what,i pleaded with her, could i do,oh what could i have done?and she twisted her wild hairand sparked her wild eyesand screamed as long asi could hear herThis. This. This.
trapped me inside, hoping to dismiss herbut she sat till morning, waiting.at dawn we would, each of us,rise frm our haunches, look through the glassthen walk away.did she gather her village around herand sing of the hairless moon face,the trembling snout, the ignorant eyes?child, i tell you now it was notthe animal blood i was…
sitting, surrounded by the smellof too old potato peelsorwhen I watch youin your old man’s shoeswith the little toe cut outsitting, waiting for your mindlike next week’s groceryI saywhen I watch youyou wet brown bag of a womanwho used to be the best looking gal in Georgiaused to be called the Georgia RoseI stand upthrough…
and dead these 15 yearswho carried a bookon every stroll.when daddy was dyingshe left the streetsand moved back hometo tend him.her pimp came tooher Diamond Dickand they would take turnsreadinga bible aloud through the house.when you poem thisand you will she would sayremember the Book of Job.happy birthday and hopeto you Josephineone of the eastsmost…
in the trees and the squirrel eyesdo not look away but the dog ones doin pity.another child has killed a childand i catch myself relieved that they arewhite and i might understand exceptthat i am tired of understanding.if thisalphabet could speak its own tongueit would be all symbol surely;the cat would hunch across the long…
summoned me out roundheaded and unsmiling.is this the moon, my father used to grin.cradling me? it was the moonbut nobody knew it then.the moon understands dark places.the moon has secrets of her own.she holds what light she can.we girls were ten years old and gigglingin our hand-me-downs. we wanted breasts,pretended that we had them, tissuedour…
all of them carrying yesterdayforever on their white tipped backs,all of them dragging forward tomorrow.it is the great circulationof the earth’s body, like the bloodof the gods, this river in which the pastis always flowing. every wateris the same water coming round.everyday someone is standing on the edgeof this river, staring into time,whispering mistakenly:only here….
turned to water under the white wordsof the man at the shoe store. ask me,though she tells it better than i do,not because of her charmbut because it never happenedshe says,no bully salesman swaggering,no rage, no shame, none of itever happened.i only remember buying youyour first grown up shoesshe smiles. ask mehow it feels.
as if i sculpted itwith my own hands. i did not.this past was waiting for mewhen i came,a monstrous unnamed baby,and i with my mother’s itchtook it to breastand named itHistory.she is more human now,learning languages everyday,remembering faces, names and dates.when she is strong enough to travelon her own, beware, she will.
