...

I cannot breathe with windows closed.
blankets become serpents,
swarm my limbs, twisting with the sheets,
slide down my mouth,
to make babies in my belly.

I give birth to three thousand women, fully formed,
and name them all Medusa.

I lock them in a tower where they wait
for a frog prince to come along
and be eaten by their hair.

I travel to hot places, sending them postcards
of my favorite statues
(for my sense of humour is dry like the negev).

I imagine my life if only Canada hadn't captured
my sweet youth in her suffocating winters
forcing me into
the serpents nest, whose temptation
I could never resist.

Better to have cold toes
than accidental babies.


--------

We chose this path of life in bursts
and then mill and weep and studying, waiting
for the next breath of air
- fresh, or stale (from fucking) -
don't joke. We must live in the space between,
go crazy for sad movies...
I can't be with you,
but from a distance, treasure your
softer spots.
My home is not in sparse rooms
cleverly placed paintings in grey
or those primary colors, used in moments
of unexpected freedom (leaping fearlessly from walls).

There are too many straight lines.
they don't fit the curves of my body
(and while I sputter, try not to qualify
these experiences,
I am still a child of the universe,
and somehow existing in opposites)

trying to live between the yes and no.

I like old things, heavy with color and shape,
my imagination supplies the stories
that leave others bored, staring at blocks of
aged stone.

Someone's hands. a spark of life. carved this..
I have been here since the stars were born.
I know them without words.
When we forget this, we begin to draw these
strange shapes ---

a manifestation of our ability
to not see things as they are..

float off in purple.

seek some rocking motion in the madness
close your eyes and try to feel
the spinning of the earth.

---

Someday I dream I might let go of the addictive madness --
my best, my only company in these dark and cold days --
and if I lost those words, or let them go, what matter? i'm full

of words, it makes me ill.

I'll try, this time, to distill them into some
more intoxicating brew before I spew them back
at you, and gaze widely, play harp
with a daft smile on my dirty face.