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 dreampt
of an aquamarine.
(Houston Poetry Fest Anthology - 2017)
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)
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 dreampt
of an aquamarine.
(Houston Poetry Fest Anthology - 2017)
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)
