Your hands easy
weight, teasing the bees
hived in my hair, your smile at th
slope of my cheek. On the
occasion, you press

When love is a shimmering curtain
Before a door of chance
That leads to a world in question
Wherein the macabrous dance
Of bones that rattle in silence

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?

Soft grey ghosts crawl up my sleev
to peer into my eyes
while I within deny their threats
and answer them with lies.
Mushlike memories perform

I note the obvious differences
in the human family.
Some of us are serious,
some thrive on comedy.
Some declare their lives are lived

A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing

We were entwined in red rings
Of blood and loneliness before
The first snows fell
Before muddy rivers seeded clouds
Above a virgin forest, and

We wear the mask that grins and li
It shades our cheeks and hides our
This debt we pay to human guile
With torn and bleeding hearts…
We smile and mouth the myriad subt

I keep on drying again.
Veins collapse, opening like the
Small fists of sleeping
Children.
Memory of old tombs,

You drink a bitter draught.
I sip the tears your eyes fight to
A cup of lees, of henbane steeped
Your breast is hot,
Your anger black and cold,