With All the Anxiety of Pandora Opening Her Inbox (Post-Partum Post-Script)
“Since he finds me worthy of adoration,
I’ll take up the role of ancient idols,
And have myself gilded as I please[…]”
i.
A slow burn, but with a pace
that didn’t keep, whispers in
an ossuary, we both
choregraph a useless
manuscript, as bled regrets
gather choking in this place,
a greige memory palace
waiting to be built, bluest
enveloped, yet, laced with trace
amounts of pain, aching pale
in Valium and twice laid
on vellum, unpenned we ghost,
pale as a pair of disgraced
virgin’s panties washed-out cold
ii.
in the holy water waste
of a brothel chapel font’s
urinal-potted rot-mouth
flowering into madness
our unread flesh carries, balm
buried in the seed shoelaced
across flushed faces we snow,
pageboys whose fruit squeezed juiceless
anticipates fate’s workspace,
contaminates history
with echoes of our names glazed
in breath across glass, cracked oaths
that go, ‘Fill me with your rape’s
unborn has-beens, behemoth
iii.
wads of erasure, thick-paste
pansies who never were!’
Together, we clean-up post-
partum post-script, subdue this
abusive tendency men
to pens’ covenants enslaved,
of such literary bent
as we, destined to speak, press
release prophecies, erase
wasted days nocturnal faith
illuminates the way flakes
of gold leaf make Shibboleth
blasphemies we paraphrase
as if his loss, god enough
iv.
almost to touch, makes of grace
a better mistake than what
the church makes of us, old growth
rooted-out, tools whose ruthless
use of tongues abuses this
gift of language papers chaste
our vociferous bark taints,
bruises-up, paints with hues of
crying ink reiterates,
names rebellious in my mouth
carry anathema’s weight
more comfortably than quotes
earmarked for torch fire and laid
out, one load desecrating both hosts.
