You Are Beautiful

For six days there's been a boy
a delicious man/boy standing
on the sidewalk at the fuckiest corner
of my early morning commute.
He has a headful of thick, dissident curls.
His legs and arms are finely
muscled. Across his chest,  he holds
a big hand lettered sign:
YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL
Drivers honk as traffic crawls
through the intersection.  I honk, too.
I wonder who he is and why he is.
I wonder if he'll be there tomorrow.
If he is, I might stop this car forever
and give him my face.

Asking

asking for patience
              hurriedly
blessings
             for a half full cup
guidance not followed
             to follow me
forgiveness
             for what's left undone

For The Tuesday Platform at Real Toads

Magdalene

Detail from mural depicting the muse Melpomene (Tragedy) by Edward Simmons, 1896

All of my favorite witches were staked and burned to bones.

This red dress is the best of the cottonmouth curses

from those pale, open mouth orchids - oracle tongues

in nightshade knots.

All gods work in threes -

a thrice dyed sleeve slipping to bare

a shoulder -shapely, shaping, shape 

shifting - maid, mother, crone.

I have strayed, skipping, from the straight and narrow and learned

to love the log in my wandering eye.  My Magdalene side

makes merry with forgotten gospels and dreams

of a desert man.

A desert man with strong, laborer's hands.

A man who knows that water is for walking,

but weddings call for wine.

For Fireblossom Friday at Real Toads

Silence

Silence is the blue note,
the only honest pitch.
I think I hear it when I'm dreaming,
but, awake, I can't seem to pry it
from my hateful head.

For Poetry Pantry at Poets United

An Elegy For Absolutes

"I am my own muse.  I am the subject I know best."

 - Frida Kahlo

Dreaming is waking is dreaming.

I am a small world - my own animal -

unnamed -

Adam's twisted tongue.

I once stood as a pillar of salt

curse your transgressing eyes!

and prayed for rain 

to melt me back to mother,

but drought showed me her back -

I had to break

to be a woman

and burn

to be a woman

and bleed the best of me

with every moon.

I suckle my second finger

like a child and do not wince

at the taste of old ore.

Reality rests before my eyes, always

colors of prayers

white washes of skin

greens of my own growing.

I have swallowed the common

sight and spit sweeter 

visions into these hands,

these little gods.  They are tireless

at creation.  They give form

to my face.

For Susie's prompt at Real Toads