Because a burning sword notches both of my doorposts
because I am standing between
my burned hands in the ashprint of two different houses
midnight finds weave a filigree of disorder
I figure in the dreams of people
who do not even know me
the night is a blister of stars
pierced by nightmares of a telephone ringing
my hand is the receiver
threatening as an uncaged motor
seductive as the pain of voiceless mornings
voiceless kitchens I remember
cornflakes shrieking like banshees in my throat
while I battle the shapes of you
wearing old ghosts of me
hating you for being
black and not woman
hating you for being white
and not me
in this carnival of memories
I name you both the laying down of power
the separation I cannot yet make
after all these years of blood
my eyes are glued
like fury to the keyholes
of yesterday
rooms
where I wander
solitary as a hunting cheetah
at play with legends call disaster
due all women who refuse to wait
in vain;
In a new room
I enter old places bearing your shape
trapped behind the sharp smell of your anger
in my voice
behind tempting invitations
to believe
your face
tipped like a pudding under glass
and I hear the high pitch of your voice
crawling out from my hearts
deepest culverts
compromise is a coffin nail
rusty as seaweed
tiding through an august house
where nobody lives
beyond choice
my pathways are strewn with old discontents
outgrown defenses still sturdy as firebrick
unlovely and dangerous as measles
they wither into uselessness
but do not decay.
Because I do not wish
to remember
but love to caress the deepest bone
of me
begging shes that wax and wane like moonfire
to absolve me at any price
I battle old ghosts of you
wearing the shapes of me
surrounded by black
and white faces
saying no over and over
becoming my mother draped in my fathers
bastard ambition
growing dark secrets
out from between her thighs
and night comes into me like a fever
my hands grip a flaming sword that screams
while an arrogant woman masquerading as a fish
plunges it deeper and deeper
into the heart we both share
like beggars
on this moment of time
where the space ships land
I have died too many deaths
that were not mine.