Love, gentler than rock tongue (2022)
You do not hate the shape of hair
tangled, slithering, or lathered in rose shampoo, so you’ll never
pray, only beg, offer
droopy-eyed dogs, fat songbirds, limping grandmothers, to show
how tender you are, how
gently you move
each sculpture into place. You want to be softened, want puppies
to have puppy-eyes and songbirds to sing without screeching and
grandmother’s terror to be relief that her bones ache no more, you
hiss so sweetly, love
so gently. Gentler
than rock
tongue, granite song, stone wrinkle, you are soft: offering
innocence, slithering scarf
gazing at battleships, never
smitten, only seduced
tenderly, to a pulp.
You want to wear sunglasses and a pretty red veil,
show off your oily scales and bruised black tongue. How else can
you know heaviness
like polar stars, deep nights
tucked deep in
another, fear like flesh
without armor. You’ve never seen through the
thick gauze, grazed
the tingling of running
blood. How else can you know weight, the crushing
weight, of head on hand? You are no stranger to the sentiment
of stone, its cruelties
Perseus, you will not be moved (2022)
You have chosen the deadliest route
to see her,
to refuse
worship. You pray wordlessly, breathe
without taking
too much. The Gods are angry. You are
soaked, sick, shedding sweat,
breathing beast’s
breath, but you have taken
sail, unmoved. You have chosen the scenic route
to see her,
to love
the ocean. You admire sure cruelties, the harsh shaping
of stone. You love
manically — burst of insanity, then silent
second of grief — because
you are hungry
for shape. You want to stand
sure as stone,
sharpened
but never changed. You’ll never be
touched gently,
loved in an artist’s eyes, so you have
taken sail to see her. You’ll
look deep into her eyes, let you be
captured,
let your lungs
rattle, rock, pebble,
breathe so hungry, she will
sharpen suffering to stone
and take it. Take it
all — stone breath, stone hunger, stone shape, stone sword.