The Thing I Couldn't Tell You

I wear black gloves, and in my palm
a white candle burns. The priest wears
a black shirt, and offers the wafer
from a silver ciborium lined with gold.

The magpie is a white bird ashed with black.
In its nest, the thieved medals of saints,
and a tryptich taken from my superstitious lips:
Good morning, Captain. Good morning Sir.

I have thick black hair, and on my breath
is the white lie I tell with the tongue
of a sanctus bell. In my palm,
the icon to whom I neither listen nor pay.

So you see, I am damned by the lie
and by the bird who stole my honest word.
My love is white but ashed with black,
stubborn as a mule with thorny roses on her back.
________

for Sunday Muse #99.

Hiding

I am hiding where you can't see
me, down where the roots find 
winding ways and secret water,
daughter of both silence and 
random lightning strike.

I am hiding where you can't touch,
such a stand-offish lonely sort
aboard a black-winged bird
absurd and glorious in her particular 
vernacular of singular songs and caws
jackdaws and crows
know better than a professor at his books.

I am hiding in the red detritus
I might as soon worship as any
many-strictured deity, and yet,
getting it wrong, being found out--
shouting and giving myself away,
saying yes, I really do reduce to
blues in the afternoon sung by
my own traitor voice on these pages like a kiss.
__________

for Fussy Little Forms: Chained Rhyme.

 

Tortoise Shell and Dog Brain

I see everything through
tortoise shell and dog brain--
it's all in an effort at honesty that I'm filling you in up front.

My cheaters might be rose-colored or dark as molasses--
you'll have to decide, based upon
my attitude, subtle cues, and giveaway pratfalls.

Okay, maybe I've been panting after you, like you think.
I'm more tortoise than hare,
so you'd better invite me by degrees after all, 
perhaps by post or 
smoke signals, because once startled I'm gone and it's a job to get me back.

So what d'you think? Never mind.
Ever since I turned seven hundred years old, I'm not as rash
as I used to be. 
Nonetheless, play your cards right and I could be
keen for your bed, hogging it,
living for nothing but to make you happy, Master, but still
prone to wander,
chase my tail,
and act stupid at the drop of a hat. 
______

by request.

Girl Sphynx

She doesn't know,
and I would never let on.

Didn't I tell you?
I stopped wearing my rainbow jewelry to work.
I act so straight
that I can't even bend to sit down.

So there's this woman.
She has no idea.

She's warmer than a San Antonio tiled roof.
She smiles whenever she sees me,
but she's just nice to everybody.
She's got a husband, if I forgot to belabor the obvious.

I like to make her laugh.
She's cuter than sunflowers in June when she does.

God can she rock that orange tee shirt,
or any of those summer sweaters she's got.
She has gray eyes
and a heart shaped face.

I never let on.
I'm a riddle, a Sphynx, an aviatrix under the radar.

Yesterday she was kidding me the way she does.
She winked,
and I wavered mid-air, but
I never blushed, I swear.
_______

for Izy's Out of Standard challenge at Real Toads: lies not well enough told.

image: Cristina Scabbia 

 

Confession

Bless me, baby, for I have sinned.
It has been a day since my last confession--
in the form of a poem
about a broken heart,
one that happened seven years ago and every day since.

I find that my life has two constants,
just like my two hands,
my two empty and idle hands.
Come up and see my workshop, honey.
I'll write you a love poem
or do anything,
if only you'll come.

I confess that I have sinned,
and that I can't walk out my front door,
or go to the mailbox
without a few mortal and venials happening almost on their own.
I covet another woman,
someone else's wife,
not even a Catholic.
Sweetheart, stop me if you've heard this one.

They say that Divine radiance can fill any heart.
I know I should look for God in every difficulty,
shovel the shit to find the pony,
but I am so hit-and-miss in my faith.
I try.
I do,
but honestly, the thing in this world that delights me most
is simply hearing you laugh.

Hope is the thing with feathers,
so says Emily,
and I think that surely she wrote it after saying something silly to Susan,
whose snort and open laughter sent whole flocks up into the Amherst sky.
_________

Got a confession? Tell Sister LaTonya.