i.

From blank sheets a dream woke me, roused
my broken spirit which it raised
only to drop again, pen deep
into the ink’s well, hand into

the wilderness creeping under
the cover of my wildest night’s
rustled comforter, searching for
her, from fantasy every

detail of my withdrawn lover’s
rich face erased, an empty gilt
frame waiting for its contents to
return, to be restored, for the

forgery of a dark room’s harsh
cynicism to be replaced by
dawn’s feigned though warm embrace, a space,
a barrenness between nude feet

          hovering over loose floorboards,

                    ii.

evading the creaking jaws of
unseen desire contemplating
what it takes to be fulfilled, for
need to be sated, seeing eyes

moving over my body the
way soft breath troubles water does
anything but soothe me, only
honeys the wound after the teeth

slaughter, paints over my smile with
sighs replacing satisfaction,
whispers away with bittersweet
rumours all anticipated

elation, as masturbation
with no ejaculation is like
copyright infringement without
monetary gain, a true crime

          any day, or so men must say,

                    iii.

if not think, when these lips of mine
spray only invectives, cast far
aspersions in situations
where sinners have no recourse to

escape their fate but to pray, fiends
kneeling as I now am at the
foot of a bed I abandon,
liminal and straddling the wrecked

ungodly hour sticking like some
thorn in the door between witching
and waking, wicked and crimsoned
red from the sore souring this torn

moment, wanting no hand in my
own undoing, unmaking it
only to comprehend how this
can happen, poised for maximal

          primrose passion then pedaling

                    iv.

backward from arousal toward
instant abandon, a woman
enraptured sobered by the brusque
dispersion of her gossamer

ethereal other into
the vapour of their vanishing
æther whose mist of lust my poised
fingers weather as I reach, flushed,

under my moist nightdress only
to discover she came just in
time to scatter what I must now
recover, her essence a wealth

transmuted by a tongue’s thunder
into the melon-sweated dew
for which my garden’s flower has
long hungered, thirsting for a hit,

          a better gravedigger to dip

                    v.

until it drips to her sudden
gushing a hidden spring, plunge spade
into this abyss I cradle,
gambling with the devil to birth

a babe to whom I can gift my
name, a changeling swapping peace of
mind for a piece of scrumptious pound
cake, playing as I am this game,

scrambling my own eggs with this heat
no touch can break, no matter how
drenched after the rolling of the
wave, down to the dregs have I downed

this summer’s flaming elixir
flickering to a shudder my
heart’s winter, opening up to
devour whole in one gulp what my

          mirror offers, drowning in her

                    vi.

glimpses, one eye cocked like a gun
locked on another, ready to
fire a wink, pouts blowing kisses
over our pink shoulders, knowing

without going overboard in
my tawdry euphemisms that we
are Sapphic sisters, that, though they
sell pussy by the pound in this

cathouse, even if their talent
transforms this town’s unrepentant
men into porn-fed swine worse than
unapologetic gluttons,

we can leave them confident ours
is a scorching fever only
my pussy’s liquor pours its froth
forth to recover from these burns.