Tapestry
The strings of her loom are pulled tight,
Stretched in perfect balance like the lines of a musical
staff,
The chords of telephone wires.
First woven, over and under, was deep mauve.
Mauve helped formed the pattern that other colors would
follow
Valleys, mountains, ups and downs,
In and out.
Then came the piercing, manic orange,
Fueled by cocaine and liquor,
Bloody, reckless, exhilarating.
She wove in the orange with shaky hands,
Secretly at midnight.
Bumpy, chaotic, messy.
For something so hidden, it screams the loudest on the loom.
Red holds dominance in her tapestry,
Stretched out for miles.
Blood red, the color of hearts ablaze.
She spent years and years and years of weaving red,
Over and under,
Over and under,
Through autumns and winters and springs and summers,
Decay, death, rebirth, warmth,
Hands moving in familiar repetition,
The yarn becoming more frayed as time passed
Eventually breaking, worn thin and tenuous.
After red is a bare break in the tapestry,
A paused moment,
A time of collecting,
Of stretching out sore fingers.
Then, bright, canary yellow makes an appearance.
It flickers in and out in short bursts,
Like shooting stars over the landscape.
She laughs as she weaves him in.
He keeps her light,
Fingers buoyantly bouncing.
The tapestry has been suspended in deep blue.
The most elusive of the colors.
When woven in,
He frequently slips out through her fingers,
Afraid of capture, of being tangled up,
Of being part of her fabric.
She tries to wind, to grasp.
Then she lets go.
The string hangs teasingly off the side of the loom,
Unsure of ending or beginning
again.
She leans back,
Gazes on the complex beauty of her tapestry,
Woven by her hands
And the hands of those who have traced her body
And held her breasts
And stroked her cheeks with love.
She surveys all of the empty space that is yet to be filled,
In wonder of what colors will dance
across her empty strings,
Early in the morning over a cup of coffee,
Late at night under blankets,
Deep, deep, deep in the cavern of her heart.
Haymarket
Hiss of hot water as it filters through grains
Chatter of books and weather and college classes
Cigarette smoke wafting in
Here we sat,
Our backs butted against her walls,
Pretending not to cry,
As we placed our love, our marriage, on her table
And crumbled it in our hands,
Like clumps of brown sugar.
Your coffee was dark and pungent,
Matching your acidity.
Your angles were softened by the round rim of your cup.
I sucked my strength up from my toes,
New baby strength,
Weak and wobbling,
Unsure of its new legs.
And we walked away,
Two roads diverging.
Now my voice fills her hallow underbelly,
As I sing songs on her stage.
I meet my lovers here,
To exchange first words, first coffees, first kisses.
My words flow from head to heart to paper,
Spurned on by the frantic push of caffeine.
In her, I am whole.
With death of heart comes triumphant rebirth,
This café incubating me,
And delivering me from her warm womb
Out into the world,
With high hopes
That I will walk, strong and steady,
Over the changing landscape of my life.
L-Bomb
It dropped out of the sky,
Whistling through the air as it fell,
Out of my control,
And it landed with a heavy thud between us.
We stared in shock, in awe,
Our faces frozen,
Mouths locked open,
Breath suspended.
We both jumped back to avoid the splatter.
I hang my eyes, exposed and embarrassed.
You brush the blood off your legs and arms.
I apologize for getting my heart, heavy with love, all over you.
Ballet
I crouch in the corner, anticipating
Watching and waiting
For a smile or a kiss or a smoke signal from your cigarette
To let me know that I can step into your space
And briefly entwine our pulses, our legs
Letting our blood flow together
In syncopated breathing.
At the first sign of your hesitancy,
Your retreat,
I leap out and crouch back in my corner
To play the waiting game again,
Always guessing at whether you will dodge
Or slow dance with me in my kitchen.
I dance around landmines that other lovers have laid,
That you have so carefully placed
Sprawled out on the floor of your apartment.
You keep me guessing.
How much can I say?
How much can I touch?
I’m one pirouette short of blowing this whole ballet to the sky.
Samson
Blonde curls fall to the floor.
Samson sits naked on his throne in my kitchen.
My last act as Delilah
Is to cut his hair,
And cut me out of his life.
