Poet Asks Forgiveness of the Night
Forgive me, Night
if I am dressed in a gown
of midnight silk.
I have sewn myself
with invisible thread
so as not to compete.
My skin has learned
to wear its bruises
this vanishing display
of blue and purple.
Forgive me
if I have taken
a secret name
that I will speak to no one
not even my real father.
It happened when
I first learned to pull
diamonds
from the folds
of my skirt
and by this I mean
that diamonds are made
only under great pressure.
Forgive me
if I am my mother’s daughter
woman of many lovers
woman of long hands
radium skin marbled blue
woman so beautiful
that I sometimes wonder
if my own lover
dreams of her.
Forgive me
if I am distracted
by another dream
where black snakes slither
in a field of rain-soaked violets.
Forgive me
if I have trained myself to wake
precisely at midnight.
It is because
I have learned how to write
my poems in the dark.
It is because
I have learned to
cast things in silver.
It is because
I have mastered
the art of astronomy.
It is the art of crying tears
into the shape of stars.
Forgive me
when I decide
to wear these stars
as a crown. (Azaleas on Fire, 2019)
Birthstone
My conception
must have been
early June
in the month of pearls
and weddings.
My father said
it happened
on his birthday.
(I like to imagine)
it was after the cake
and champagne
in a pale blue bedroom
that he swam
the length
of my mother's
moon-white
skin by candlelight.
I was born
nine months later
out of wed-lock
but as they slept
his fingers woven
into the waves
of her long black hair
I'm told she dreamt
of an aquamarine.
(Houston Poetry Fest Anthology - 2017)
Bolshoi Ballet Tours the West: A Cold War Poem
The word defection floats in the air.
Sotto voce. The ability to hear whispers
is every child’s superpower.
I am a tiny balletomane. My hand
fully encapsulated by my father’s, we move
through a theatre of older women in beaded gowns.
Strange magic lives behind the Iron Curtain:
Nureyev, the white crow.
Plisetskaya, dying swan, Odette/Odile, the feathered
captives of a nuclear wizard.
By the age of seven, I imagine the Soviet Union
is a cage filled with white birds and pointe shoes.
The Cold War, a battle of ice crystals.
Madame Semenova is my ballet teacher.
Sarcasm drips tart from her lips.
She carries a long black stick,
pokes at our legs and shoulders,
often tells the story of another jealous ballerina
pouring ground glass into Madame’s slippers,
how blood stained the pale pink satin
while the audience watched.
Her bourrées were perfect.
There are A-bomb drills in my elementary school
at least once a week. Children can be taught to move
like baby swans in winter,
in single file with surprising precision,
to line up alphabetically in hallways,
to sit on cold granite floors,
spine to wall, head beneath hands,
tucked between knees.
When our parents find us,
we will be incinerated
into carefully organized piles of ash.
(Willawaw Journal, Spring 2021)
Narcissus
Flowers
in January
something of me
left
in your world
something
small
white
narcotic
indolic.
If ghosts
carried scent
in their rising
from the earth
this would be it
this smell
not quite
jasmine
tuberose
civet
or musk deer
but something
very close
to the smell
of your skin
in the rain.
Yellow-centered
stars
clustered
hovering
on tall
wet
emerald
stems
you will find them
in the damp silver
morning fog.
When I am dead
bury me
here.
Bury me
beneath
pine needles.
Plant me
with narcissus bulbs.
I want
to wake again
three months later
in your world
a small
paper-white face
standing
slender
in the cold.
A green wisp
of nothing
thin pale feet
tiny roots
that cling
to a wet
black earth.
One tiny
wildling
who will
still
sing you
a love song
in the middle
of a freezing
rain.
(The Wild Word, Berlin, March 2018)
Russian Novel
Speak of tears and frost,
and stolen cherries.
Hunt the woods
for wild mushrooms.
Gallop dark horses
through deepening
drifts of snow.
The samovars are filled
with spiced tea,
the brindled hounds
asleep at our feet.
Tell the story again
of how we waltz,
the silver mirrors
that spill our secrets,
white lilacs
shaken
from a black branch,
and how we kiss
when there is nothing left
except the rain.
(PANOPLY - 2021)
Forgive me, Night
if I am dressed in a gown
of midnight silk.
I have sewn myself
with invisible thread
so as not to compete.
My skin has learned
to wear its bruises
this vanishing display
of blue and purple.
Forgive me
if I have taken
a secret name
that I will speak to no one
not even my real father.
It happened when
I first learned to pull
diamonds
from the folds
of my skirt
and by this I mean
that diamonds are made
only under great pressure.
Forgive me
if I am my mother’s daughter
woman of many lovers
woman of long hands
radium skin marbled blue
woman so beautiful
that I sometimes wonder
if my own lover
dreams of her.
Forgive me
if I am distracted
by another dream
where black snakes slither
in a field of rain-soaked violets.
Forgive me
if I have trained myself to wake
precisely at midnight.
It is because
I have learned how to write
my poems in the dark.
It is because
I have learned to
cast things in silver.
It is because
I have mastered
the art of astronomy.
It is the art of crying tears
into the shape of stars.
Forgive me
when I decide
to wear these stars
as a crown. (Azaleas on Fire, 2019)
Birthstone
My conception
must have been
early June
in the month of pearls
and weddings.
My father said
it happened
on his birthday.
(I like to imagine)
it was after the cake
and champagne
in a pale blue bedroom
that he swam
the length
of my mother's
moon-white
skin by candlelight.
I was born
nine months later
out of wed-lock
but as they slept
his fingers woven
into the waves
of her long black hair
I'm told she dreamt
of an aquamarine.
(Houston Poetry Fest Anthology - 2017)
Bolshoi Ballet Tours the West: A Cold War Poem
The word defection floats in the air.
Sotto voce. The ability to hear whispers
is every child’s superpower.
I am a tiny balletomane. My hand
fully encapsulated by my father’s, we move
through a theatre of older women in beaded gowns.
Strange magic lives behind the Iron Curtain:
Nureyev, the white crow.
Plisetskaya, dying swan, Odette/Odile, the feathered
captives of a nuclear wizard.
By the age of seven, I imagine the Soviet Union
is a cage filled with white birds and pointe shoes.
The Cold War, a battle of ice crystals.
Madame Semenova is my ballet teacher.
Sarcasm drips tart from her lips.
She carries a long black stick,
pokes at our legs and shoulders,
often tells the story of another jealous ballerina
pouring ground glass into Madame’s slippers,
how blood stained the pale pink satin
while the audience watched.
Her bourrées were perfect.
There are A-bomb drills in my elementary school
at least once a week. Children can be taught to move
like baby swans in winter,
in single file with surprising precision,
to line up alphabetically in hallways,
to sit on cold granite floors,
spine to wall, head beneath hands,
tucked between knees.
When our parents find us,
we will be incinerated
into carefully organized piles of ash.
(Willawaw Journal, Spring 2021)
Narcissus
Flowers
in January
something of me
left
in your world
something
small
white
narcotic
indolic.
If ghosts
carried scent
in their rising
from the earth
this would be it
this smell
not quite
jasmine
tuberose
civet
or musk deer
but something
very close
to the smell
of your skin
in the rain.
Yellow-centered
stars
clustered
hovering
on tall
wet
emerald
stems
you will find them
in the damp silver
morning fog.
When I am dead
bury me
here.
Bury me
beneath
pine needles.
Plant me
with narcissus bulbs.
I want
to wake again
three months later
in your world
a small
paper-white face
standing
slender
in the cold.
A green wisp
of nothing
thin pale feet
tiny roots
that cling
to a wet
black earth.
One tiny
wildling
who will
still
sing you
a love song
in the middle
of a freezing
rain.
(The Wild Word, Berlin, March 2018)
Russian Novel
Speak of tears and frost,
and stolen cherries.
Hunt the woods
for wild mushrooms.
Gallop dark horses
through deepening
drifts of snow.
The samovars are filled
with spiced tea,
the brindled hounds
asleep at our feet.
Tell the story again
of how we waltz,
the silver mirrors
that spill our secrets,
white lilacs
shaken
from a black branch,
and how we kiss
when there is nothing left
except the rain.
(PANOPLY - 2021)