Crow Heart

I told you from the start,
from the morning you came through my open door
tripping on a hinge flopped dead on the flagstones,
that crows had nested in my heart.

My fairy tale cottage had survived the bombardment;
just a little gingerbread dust on the plates and tables.
You arrested me with such restraint
and took me before the local commander almost tenderly.

Judge and executioner grow out of each other's backs here,
squabbling, one keen to rot on the bench, the other furiously knitting hoods
out of rationed sail cloth and sheer frustration.
I smiled at them, took your hand, got you reprimanded.

My crows live for trickery because they are crows.
I am an honest woman, but they have nested in my heart,
so all night long I hear them gearing up their little printing press
and in the morning I am a prohibited edition and you have to act.

My crows dash themselves against the cathedral bells 
even as my show trial continues. Ring! Ring!
They have no respect for anything, and I have caught their fever.
I sway as if on ropes and pulleys, and my advocate warns me to stop singing.

We might have loved, you and I, in my gingerbread bed,
if we had met when people still cared about things.
As it is, I sink the shiv in even as I kiss you, but the birds whisper
inside my chest, insisting that I leave you a trinket, my old heart, 

bright and worthless as a penny.
_______

For Transforming Fridays, "totem animal".

top image: Cristina Scabbia of Lacuna Coil 

Athena

Athena--Mama said
not to go out in the
garden
barefoot
after it rains.

Ignore her. Do 
it anyway.
You are a Goddess--

the Earth moves at
your whim,
between
your toes.

Athena--every foot-
print you ever make
will be
erased
eventually.

Never mind that.
Never mind Mama.
Go change
the world

by walking barefoot
in the mud, by
picking a 
flower, by
being you, right now, in the world as it is.
_____

for Hannah's "footprints" challenge. I hope it's adequate; I don't feel much like writing.

 
 

 

Panda

China is so big, such a giant on the map and in physical space,
that a person might fall in love with someone,
go all stupid over someone,
and never see them again, disappearing into the crowd
in a port city
on a bicycle,
ringing the little bell and vanishing.

Pandas eat bamboo shoots, 
so poor in nutrition that they must consume mightily to survive.
They don't know how remarkable they are, they never see a mirror;
they just eat and crap and sleep and have no idea how loved they are
all over the world.

You are twenty miles down the road, 
but I am feeling equators and great walls.
Come back, I'll boil you all the rice you want,
and when I speak it can be in those little characters.

I have a shovel,
and I am digging digging digging.
I am hoping to hit bicycle tire.
I am hoping a big black paw will reach up for me, and pull me through,
or that I'll hear your truck,
the door, your bag hitting the entryway tile.

Opium's for suckers, your face is the only high I need,
so catch the first thing smoking and I will
cancel my expedition, put the kibosh on the dig.
I love you. Don't you know?
Or are you a panda, adorable and clueless,
wandering the bamboo forest 
when I've got something better in mind?
_______

for Hannah's prompt at Real Toads.

Neptune's Time Share

Neptune sold his time share.
Now he runs a riding stable in upstate New York.
Venus can't pull off those young fashions anymore
without looking a little desperate,
and Janus got a gig as a doorman in Miami--
he can scan both sides of the street for a cab.
 
Diana and Egeria are lavender girls, if you know what I mean;
best friends, my ass.
Survey says, Vulcan and Vesta can't keep burning it up forever,
but somebody's got to make up for Minerva,
always studying for another Master's.

Remember when we used to chant:
Boys go to Jupiter
to get more stupider;
girls go to Mars
to get more candy bars.

Ceres is knocked up again.
I guess going vegan didn't slow her down a bit.
And Apollo, wellll, Apollo....
who knew he could lie like that?
He had us all fooled and now he'll do a dime up at Jackson.

I bought Neptune's time share
from the silly fucks who got it from him.
Now I get my two weeks,
but it won't be like it was when your skin was dark and shining.

The lake is frozen,
you spun some shit about having to work,
and so what do I do now--
now that I know that even an off-season goddess
is just another dumb girl after all?
________

for Hannah's challenge at Real Toads. "Lavender girls" (and "twilight girls") was pulp novel code for lesbians, back in the day.

The Neighborhood Babe

Wise man say:
Quit with the pidgin already.
If you can't put together a simple declarative sentence in the English language,
the best I can offer you is a gig with the railroad.

The Neighborhood Babe leaves her rugrats at home for the evening,
and attends a night class.
Pretty soon she can dance like Ginger Rogers
and do her own taxes,
but she needs more, you dig?

Up, up the mountain she goes, that chalk-fingered Babe,
to the tippy top.
Survey says:
Location, location, location,
but there he is anyway,
the Shell Answer Man,
chewing on a Krispy Kreme.

I want to be a poet, she tells him.
He says:
Jot down a bunch of gibberish.
Everybody'll love it and toss roses at your feet,
and even if they don't,
just call your sloppy nonsense poetic license and smile indulgently.
Then come back here and fill in for me;
I need to see a man about a dog.

So the Neighborhood Babe finally arrives back home,
spouting zen koans
and making the rugrats dig a koi pond in the back yard.
At night she dreams of China--
the Great Wall turns into an undulating snake,
and she rides it, waving her hat like a cowgirl and shouting hoo-wee!
Fortune cookie say:
Though shrouded in mists, lofty heights await.
Sometimes she actually knocks her pillow onto the floor.
______

for Hannahballistic's Transforming Friday challenge!

 

 

A Shy Girl's Apology Comes Too Late

I am shy--
to the last or the nth degree,
depending upon my mood.

I hide from the males--
bigger, bolder--
less inclined to bother with formalities as they get older.

I'm a quiet girl--
padding softly, barely breathing.
I don't like sloppy unplanned meetings.

Soft as a whisper, careful as a lie--
out on a limb
when the sun is high.

I am shy--
a spotty rumor, or a golden-eyed beauty
depending upon my mood.

So, you must forgive me
if my approach seems rude--
I couldn't help noticing that you're made of food.
________

for Hannahballistic's Transforming Friday!

Shorthand For Cheetahs

Cheetah caught me as I was dreaming--
she wrapped around me,
quick and hot;

I kissed the black tear-tracks of her face--
her ears, and her
flash-fast paws...

If you love a cheetah,
let her know she's the only one--
"til next time," tell her, as she goes,
even though she's already gone.
_______

On loving a woman who never sits down, for Hannah's fantastic Transforming Friday challenge!

Paint Horse

I am the paint horse--
I have high-stepped through a thousand snakes,
mouths open like poisoned prairie flowers;

I have left their heads beneath my hooves,
a row of flat, dull silver dollars
staring at the endless open sky without seeing it.

You have called me,
whether you knew it or not.
You, beneath your buffalo blanket like the moon behind a cloud,
you have drawn me here.

With a circle around my eye,
and a hand print on my flank,
I feel the bones of all who came before us--
yours,
and mine--
beneath this dirt, these roots, this earth in all directions.

I am calling you,
you, the beautiful one I love.
You have pushed the bone shard through the flesh of your slender arm,
and not flinched.
Surely, every ghost will honor this.

I am the paint horse,
waiting;
you are the one I love.
We will not need reins, a saddle,
or anything but our bodies
together like cloud and storm,
across the plains.
________

for Hannaballistic's Transforming Friday challenge at Real Toads. She commands that we write about the prairie and its creatures.