Poetry

The strippers threw an art show at the community gallery.
Apportioning the boxed wine at the opening, we all wore
protest stickers feminists had plastered on the windows—

A mother’s prayer scents the road and charts the course.
Before the journey, impatience grows between my bones. We gather,

I rode him for years, my enemy.
That red horse fated to the back
paddock and dog food factory,

Grief of the sea,
cold lights drifting
over marble plains.

In a dialogue for freedom, a slave once
begged his owners, knees bruised by the rocks
he crawled upon. I kneel before my lover
shackled by desires. I become her slave

The flight was long. We didn’t touch.
Somewhere over the Atlantic,
I ordered my complimentary glass
of red wine.

the gods watched over. And it was briefly true.
The gods. Their attention.
When I was little, we lived on heirs’ land,

Last night, we made love for the first time
in a long while. You held me as you always
have, a little uncertainly, and then with resolve.