Two Sharks

 

I have two sharks inside me

swimming in tandem and holding my heart

between them like a little family 

walking in the dark.

I send them gulps of air from outside

as if I were some sort of oxygenated charity

with a face and feet, operating in the world

on their behalf like a proxy or prosthetic.

Oh fishies, confined and angry in the bowl of my ribs,

here come those old blues again.

Why does life go on so long, demand so much,

slowly dribbling out the cracked glass of years?

I have had ideas all along, fine ideas

to open a ministry in a dumpster,

a ballroom in an attic, a cemetery 

on a space station with the whole Earth for Ouija board.

I'm scared, fishies. Will the moon call you

and will you answer her tidal madrigal?

Will she require three voices, you and my heart?

Will you rise in glory, leaving me hollow, in salt and sorrow?

_________________

for Word Garden Word List--How To Sell a Haunted House

Chorus

 Our Lady of the Golden Voice

who makes the shepherds howl

and leaves the clerics' eyes all moist

then gifts them salted towels

Oh Lady fair, oh Lady cruel

riding a treble clef

admit us to your Music School

to chisel loose each breath.

____

for quadrille Monday

hosted by Linda Lyberg

Poor Betty

 

She built a doorway of hard-done-by and walked straight into it,

then said she'd been beaten by the future.

She placed a putty god in a mushroom soup sky

like a bumper sticker on a car made of wind.

Go, Betty, Our Lady of the Tinkertoy Triptych.

It's sad magic to watch a woman become an infant,

plastic ring on a tiny fat hand, teething on the little vile grenades

she treats like dollies, dumb scapegoats to blame for her dead dandelion smile.

______

for The Sunday Muse #212.

Penance

I am a ghost looking for spirits; steam searching for smoke. 

I wear my long duster, and carry a kerosene sun.

I am a nun praying my penance; a singer struck by stroke.

I am your grave digger; you, better loved than anyone.

I wear my long duster, and carry a kerosene sun.

I am found by dire-light, turning scripture to palimpsest. 

I am never done, though my diet is the slenderest.

I am a nun paying my penance; a singer struck by stroke.

Collecting throats in my pockets, renaming them all night.

I have choked back every longing, and paled your name with white.

I am your grave digger; you,  better loved than anyone.

My all-and-none, my crossroads queen awoke,

I am a ghost looking for spirits; light transformed to smoke.

________

This is a trimeric, for Sunday Muse #184.  

Armageddon Lullaby

Birds flew high above a world on fire.
Around my neck a river worn as below my body burned.
In my hair a water-garland where water birds turned.
All around, the black-robed dead, on legion ashen pyres.

I called to the birds above a world on fire.
Called and sang to the birds from my disintegrating throat.
The birds spun from glass and the heavens entire
were turned by my song first to whispers, then to smoke.

Around my neck I wore a childhood stream.
In my hair a feather garland made of swans and steam.
The world turned red, then orange, then white
and the birds to choristers of anthracite.
________

for Sunday Muse #89. And for the world in flood and fire.

This Man I Love

He is difficult to know, this man I love.
Often, he is above me, behind me,
but I can hear his breathing 
distinct and beautiful like a private language.

Many have left him, this man I love.
Without a word, they go, and never return,
as if they were letters without addresses, or addresses abandoned and dark.

I found him by rising. I took each step in turn as if I were a dancer, 
and all I had to do was follow. I found it in me to do this,
for the first time in my life,
and without resenting it, or hanging back.
I keep my hands clasped, but in something more binding than prayer.
This man I love, he waits, and I am the answer for his faith.

His are the hands of an artisan, and I am the vessel now full, then changed.
When I submit to him, I know his skill is for me alone,
and that he will not falter, or hesitate, or fail me with his touch.
I will lift my skirts and lower my eyes.
I will kneel.

He is difficult to know, this man I love, 
and wears the hood of his trade that it might remain so.
When he lifts my hair, he trembles and sighs,
asking pardon and coin, his kiss sharp and low.
______

for my Fireblossom Friday prompt on the theme of "incongruity."