Curtains forcing their will
against the wind,
children sleep,
exchanging dreams with
seraphim. The city

There is no warning rattle at the
nor heavy feet to stomp the foyer
Safe in the dark prison, I know t
light slides over
the fingered work of a toothless

One innocent spring
your voice meant to me
less than tires turning
on a distant street.
Your name, perhaps spoken,

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

Your skin like dawn
Mine like musk
One paints the beginning
of a certain end.
The other, the end of a

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,

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?

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone

The sun has come.
The mist has gone.
We see in the distance...
our long way home.
I was always yours to have.

A last love,
proper in conclusion,
should snip the wings
forbidding further flight.
But I, now,