New Poem.

alone in my home # 36


1. cop show
(muh) the brown man
pushes his lips together

(th) creases them with his tongue
(ur) aspirates into a roll

(Fuh) pushes his top teeth to his bottom lip
(kh) sends a burst from his throat to the air

(ur) aspirates, and coyly rolls his tongue
to let the cop know what he thinks of the handcuffs

no one’s mother
should have to be the soul train line for a word like that.

the way that word does the devildance from his lips
hollows me.

2. memory
he never used that word with me
but I listened to him crush it in his mouth

and when he kissed me with that mouth,
I tasted it.

Bitterkiss was no better a blanket
than mother, but it was his house.

3. further back
I stopped cursing 11 years ago.
let the poolwater in someone’s backyard

make a promise all over my skin
with hymns that broke knees down to singing

that Sunday morning
the man on the train

wanted me to watch him play harmonica
I buried my head in my bagel and tea

your not supposed to f-ing eat on the f-ing train you f-ing fat slob
I wet my face like a child in trouble

3. cop show again
…and he does the lip/tongue throat/teeth dance with his mouth
two more times in rapid succession

the cop spits in counterpoint
they fugue into a brown and white tangle

reggae beat flips
while the (uck) and the (f) tango like outstretched arms

the way that word does the devildance from his lips
hollows me.

New Poem.



Broken Ritual


I woke up this morning
with a rope around my neck

It was my own hand
new fingers had grown

woven their stranglethreads taut
pulse of handveins

tremble of throat
rhythm of a dark hymn

This is no simple noose
I will not be hanged

nor will my feet find the trembleswing like Judas
nor will I be found sisterfruit

swung from the poplar
in the army air of dawn

I will suffer by my own hand
a new flesh of rope each morning

guided under and through tightened skin
each raw rope flesh

drawn into corset spectacle
that runs spinal from the base of my head

to the folds of my hips
these braided fingers are an enemy I know