Scar

This is a simple poem.

For the mothers sisters daughters

girls I have never been

for the women who clean the Staten Island Ferry

for the sleek witches who burn

me at midnight

in effigy

because I eat at their tables

and sleep with their ghosts.

These stones in my heart are you

of my own flesh

whittling me with your sharp false eyes

searching for prisms

falling out of your head

laughing me out of your skin

because you do not value your own

self

nor me.

This is a simple poem

I will have no mother no sister no daughter

when I am through

and only the bones are left

see how the bones are showing

the shape of us at war

clawing our own flesh out

to feed the backside of our masklike faces

that we have given the names of men.

Donald DeFreeze I never knew you so well

as in the eyes of my own mirror

did you hope

for blessing or pardon

lying

in bed after bed

or was your eye sharp and merciless enough

to endure

beyond the deaths of wanting?

With your voice in my ears

with my voice in your ears

try to deny me

I will hunt you down

through the night veins of my own addiction

through all my unsatisfied childhoods

as this poem unfolds

like the leaves of a poppy

I have no sister no mother no children

left

only a tideless ocean of moonlit women

in all shades of loving

learning a dance of open and closing

learning a dance of electrical tenderness

no father no mother would teach them.

Come Sambo dance with me

pay the piper dangling dancing

his knee high darling

over your wanting

under your bloody

white faces come Bimbo come Ding Dong

watch the city falling down down

down lie down bitch slow down nigger

so you want a cozy womb to hide you

to pucker up and suck you back

safely

well I tell you what I’m gonna do

next time you head for the hatchet

really need some nook to hole up in

look me up

I’m the ticket taker on a queen

of rollercoasters

I can get you off

cheap.

This is a simple poem

sharing my head with the dream

of a big black woman with jewels

in her eyes

she dances

her head in a golden helmet

arrogant

plumed

her name is Colossa

her thighs are like stanchions

or flayed hickory trees

embraced in armour

she dances

in slow earth shaking motions

that suddenly alter

and lighten

as she whirls laughing

tooled metal over her hips

comes to an end

and at the shiny edge

an astonishment

of soft black curly hair.