Rosary

I wear a rosary, five decades long
around my neck--all summer, all winter. 
I keep it close--you can't touch the beads without touching my skin
or occasional sidewalk seraphim.

I've got a thousand faces, wigs on wire stands
kept at the bottom of a duffel--in the closet at the back of my skull.
Choose one, kiss me, wrap a strand around your knuckle
and behold me--raving beauty, former flame, ordinary uggo. 

Water, blessed, still and calm
for angel or centurion--
bless dawn, bless noon, bless sprays of stars
and all that were and all that are.

I've got a lineage, five mothers long
around my neck--all summer, all winter. 
I'm the little girl made of snow, the bride in the vestibule gartered, veiled,
given away--then gone through a dream door, armored, mailed. 

I speak a thousand tongues, Latin and patois
tell scalding truths--in solitude, under storm and palm--
I'm the girl next door, a holy whore, a musical prodigy without instrument
or tenets, a wild child--your pass around pack, your sacrament.

Water, blessed, still and calm
for angel or centurion--
bless dawn, bless noon, bless spray of stars
and all that were and all that are.
_______

For Brendan's multiplicity prompt at Toads on Day 4.

Apple Heart

A wounded deer leaps the highest.

Emily Dickinson

 

I'll never tell you what I really wanted.

I'd rather chamber that thought and give it head, and if there are

hookers in Heaven, why then I'll have a job.

 

Keep mystifying doctors, dear,

with your apple heart--

red on the outside,

bloodless on the inside,

 

a sucker bet I lost but lived to tell.

_____

 

a 55 for Kerry at Real Toads.