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broken girl healing woman shaman I have to smooth my soothing salve Because no one else will Broken woman healing girl Shaman I have to smooth my soothing salve Because no one else will, 2011 -
do crooked little girls grow into gnarled women condom wrappers scratch at young thighs beneath cheap thread count a rhetorical pillowcase tear soaked do crooked little girls grow into gnarled women a rheumatoid forest perpetually awaiting autumn, 2011
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drops from the clenched mouths of eyes dreaming delusion fogged by what greets each morning we’d rather form keloid from it to worry at when one hand grasps at the other, 2011
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he buried love’s bones deep within hoping to resurrect her, 2011
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her womb smells of rubbing alcohol swore she heard the laughter of sons their vacant faces still born gaze barren red hurt translucent wings beating against the gold sky she would have named you all, 2011
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how soon before you become mista conjured wispa thumb sliding over broken glass shard yolk easing yellow over shell fragments, 2011
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I carry sulfur on my wings Your teeth are flint Glinting beneath the milky moon, 2011
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I have no footing even in slumberHe says he’s a manYet a man who robs youOf your safea soft boned memoryhe’s sucked dry the marrow, 2011
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I long to be a sharpened knife Digging into a cheek My name breaking shore Over his teeth A moon pulled tide A waterlogged mention, 2011
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I wonder
Do crooked little girls grow into gnarled women
Knobby limbs curled defensively around frail body
Brittle brown trunk
Do crooked little girls grow into gnarled women
Do their leaves shrivel, crackled off splintered branches
At the mention o, 2011 -
imperfect man I’ve imagined you in the cool dark Swilling whiskey like water Newport smoke wafting to the heavens The glass shards Pierced the palm Your brow A sweaty welt You gathered My sister Her belongings, 2011
-
isopropyl alcohol
sweating your wrinkled belly
worn from births
soft like velvet
into it you sank insulin needles
I mirrored
your wincing, 2011 -
it was too soon
to swill a new name in your mouth
he brought with him
muddy silence
a dragging stain
across the yellow seeds
you deafened
became powder between the fingers
how soon will he crumble into memory
a used casing
in the stale soil, 2011 -
I’ve been
Water
Washing away some sin
Molasses
Sticking to the jags
Glue Losing its tack
Hair Clogging a drain
Understudy
Hoping for a sprained ankle
Repentance
Tucked away in prayer
But God wanted me to forgive myself
First, 2011 -
mami says you have fallen
your brittle bones
cannot knit themselves well, 2011 -
my sister’s fingers, beak-pecked
my brother’s brow, a crimson slice
yellow bird
perhaps you fled through the window
while I was sleeping, 2011 -
pomegranate
someone’s sought after apple
forced open/picked through
savored, sweet sucked on flesh clean off bone
seeds spit out
my peeled back skin
left to bake dry
your shelf was threadbare
only good
because you were starving, 2011 -
scales glinted
laughter mocking the sunshine
metal blade against the iridescent crescent
plotting, 2011 -
She kept two free
Daddy would have murdered had
He learned years before, 2011 -
shell
and yolk
glued
and cracked respectively
no carton to keep her, 2011 -
sometimes
I wonder if all along
You saw me unravel
Witnessed the spool
And thought I’d keep even stitches, 2011 -
the red globes bloomed from my fingertips she always told me never to cry in water for fear that tears would turn to blood these days I swim in a sanguine sea, 2011
-
the way silence
tentacles around the neck
renders us mute
she’s gone
I can’t find her
Neither will you, 2011 -
you hold out palms to empty places
await the voice
to remind you
that you’re beautiful
safety
those days you have trouble believing it
echoes don’t even respond
lonely, 2011 -
you try to mend you left many legs crawling a nail carving into the belly a gnaw you are silent you do not care to know you’ve had your fill you pick remnants from your teeth fling them at the floor, 2011
-
you won’t remember
my name
how the comb caught tangles
the apron sponging tears
the powder you’d dot your breasts with
the silver rivers in your hair
the bubble of vegetables in simmering pot, warbled alabanzas
the hairpins stabbing my scalp
affix, 2011
