Shelter
Learn early.
The things you hate to press.
Pleats. Tempera-
mental fabrics. Crepe. Linen. Ego.
Learn. The weight of beauty.
The corseted id. Better
not be. Magnetic. Not
draw base men spent & angled,
whose tongues out wrangle your tongue,
leave nicotine & rum wafers
dissolving in your mouth. Yourself.
Better buried.
Bury your bones.
Bury your name.
Never be recalled.
Burrow in cool earth.
Deeply anonymous.
Cover proud flesh.
Otherwise.
Chill closes in, brings
small dead things. Twigs, fallen
leaves. Bleeding
trees. See what is always
underfoot, litter pinwheels, old
newspapers, cigarette butts, buttons, condoms.
Trash, woozy in the rising,
seeks shelter against a fence.
The world grows colder.
Windows shut. An old wag
of a tree is stripped, as crazy strong wind rips leaves,
grips them by their skinny throats &
whips them into adios.
Remember.
Mud daubers live underground. Some sort of
a smile sediments in the canyon in your eyes.
One day you will be
discovered, like a ‘60s girl group,
da-do-ron-ron-ron chickweed wild,
in a dry bed,
of a river no longer. You will be known past,
tense . A falling
star. Until then,
wrap wool around your skinny.
Truth itches. Dream chiffon.
Ebb. Shiver.
Moths, go to hell.
Shivering, pull on hulls.
Husks crackling past lives.
Finally moss. Silent
as snow. Moss waits for yes,
forgives, loves each small skin sin,
kisses you soft, the only soft thing you hold against you.
Dream.
The river.
You braid your dreams into a basket.
Hang it on a crescent moon.
Crickets serenade.
Lemongrass sighs.
All your moments make sense now,
swim together like Yellow Tang.
The sun embraces your back.
Your shadow is born.
Loves you to death.
You know now, you were the only one who knew,
that night,
no is not a river,
no is a rock.