Clean Smiles

Rapture pours through your mouth in a smile
set to burn a crucifix below my milky
skin and though my feet are smoldering the path
to seaplane flames
the priest finds a way to bless me first
before Christ hands me off to monks hiding spiders in their nails.

Before my mother begged “Bless me, bless us all,”
I reminded her: Blessings are no better than soil burnt and blended with ash anymore.

Before curtains crash folds of velvet
into the wicked waiting, a penalty buried
beneath dirt, beneath virgin foot stampings,
weaves a fabric silk of worms tight around my bust and ribcage.
And while the lighthouse guides
the postcards sent by sinking bodies to the shore,
Judas and baby Jesus cackle,
silently concealing their game of cards.
The trick has always been on you.

Salvation has a price-tag,
inching apocalyptic,
for that seeping melatonin and gold leaf paper,
the bible has never looked so lovely
next to your brow burning,
but no matter how long I polish your bones,
they’ll never shine like diamonds
or God’s glitter teeth.

Take me to the father: show him my fears like cuticles bleeding for faith
and if you really are an angel, lick my scars and watch them glow clean, ruby hot,
a color unfamiliar in the sky made of lapis.

A lovely chill has come over the Midwest and already I can feel Fall seeping in, drying my skin and beckoning forward my boots. I adore this season and the productive writing that somehow manages to come with it, so here’s to Fall and may much prose flourish throughout.

Sirens Loosen Seams

Your voice like calliope adorns sirens in my skirt
built by the echos of steam dreams,
faint from an organs subtle cry.
And touching to the marrow
you embrace a luminous silence
of suns setting mythology
until the moons savage shine
torments a compromise into my autumn gown.

Pile silk in patterns of stitch falling to knees,
a sweet romance of form and delicate tact,
the weight of you, midnight muse,
teases an innocence out these blackened bones.

Walking Through the Ocean in Lace

Plunge into salt sand,
an invisible blue stain sea crashes lace onto skin,
onto plying limbs seeking the shine of the moon.

Rays full and reflecting, reveal the riptides teasing,
the shredding of a fabric slip tight to your bodice.

Waves walk through you, imprinting patterns with force,
a nature mother once warned could conquer.
And as echoes of conch shell sirens bid you deep,
lace and your silk bones settle on sinking.

Your fingers clench foam, that green buoyant flotsam,
and turning that spine in an angle against the sea,
you remember: no boat has been built by this body.

No temptress can be bought by your gown.

Light Stained Dreams

Crackling with lights chameleon
in their neon nature,
the city breathes noise
blurred in streams of transport bodies
careening through bright luminosity,
that humming of silent selling, flashing
irises in wonder of edifices waxing,
the glittering glow across cheekbones
warms the evening black.

The streets need no moon to shine,
only their secret outlets pulsing,
electric waves pumping
through veins to bulbs
to footsteps tapping concrete
like a heartbeat drums
to the golden cab horns;
And when the hustle has quieted,
when it’s just the city
and you breathing bright…
Listen, listen:
The blinding vernacular,
lacquered to your lobes,
stained memories
miles into those light stained dreams.

The temperature is reading past 105 degrees tomorrow and so I shall pay the ocean waters a visit. Green-glass sea, sand and sunshine awaits me.

Burnt Offering

Take me in your tusks
and raise me as an offering
for sparkling rain to dance
on soil where leaves,
berries and heartbeats breakdown
to breath mulch miracles
through these pulling veins.

Back arched in the demons grip,
take me, sky cloud, to an island
where we will blossom
into glass blankets to catch
the metal sun splinters
and mountain shadows
in between our imagination
and the equator.

Ghosts will trace us
to god’s fingertips hammering
at the brass maps guiding
our glass wings,
clang, clang, cling
sounds tapping like raindrops,
striking a reflection—
mirror me deep,
deep deep in you.

“Offer me,” I say.
Take me in your tusks
to the tips of mountains
and peaks of seas.
Let me dampen and flake
with wet earth and fruit,
soft a pulse perfumed
in dirt berries.

I’m convinced the world would be a better place if we would all just partake in some flashmob chicanery. Watch some Swedes bust a move, and beat it, in a tribute to Michael Jackson.

Burn Me Bright

Let’s paint the sky orange
in a sequin magic sequence…
A shower to sparkle
coconut skin scandals
hotly glistening,
hearts quaking, melting streets
where our concrete romance
throws flames towards sun’s creosote stars.

Burn me bright,
burn me   b  r  i   g   h   t,
burn me.

Sunset Spider Catapult

Waste me wind,
on your back
and lead me to your ocean—
the sultry splinters
clicking in the night quake,
the nearby whistle of a waking moon
floods me with the secrets of
your eyelids
locked thick from feathers
breaking the sky.

You are my sticky sweet finger wings
reaching through the breeze
to bend my body,
fold my limbs,
wrap my veins in you.

Opal me and mighty my wounds,
like leaves crumbling
the tides backbone totem.
Remind me, my Cherokee,
how to drum the saddling hills.
Remind me, my sunset spider,
how to catapult my skeleton soul to the sun.