Girl with ire, for you are woman, though you are still
a girl
dark skinned girl, like a fruit grown in midnight
richer somehow, distinct in a world of lost focus
something in movement deliniates this, hones in
brands you ageless in ways
only few achieve
it is your saving grace and why
my jaw hurts from grinding
all the passion I have to pieces of
confetti, ready for your marriage to
status of unattainable.
I had a rule once, don’t fall for girls
who cut their fractured eyes at the world
ruled with upturned, defiant chins
don’t succumb to the delights others see
in that girl who brightens the room with her
brown-eyed glare and gnashing smile
she is merciless, she is cruel at times, cutting
in that barbed way of the magnificient, used to
her fawning subjugates
she is unaware of you and the depths you swim
for she exists only in the light, that hot wattage
her skin, her movement, set on high to drive you
to distraction, as you watch her skirt hike
just slightly above her knees as she talks with her hands, unknowing her own unfurling
not to want anything, not you, not solace
where radiant and hot she stands, fuming
diety, showered, sharp teeth licking
what it feels like to carry that long tongued weight of desire
with adulation and never
all those shuttered years with trembling
closed lips
for some secrets cannot be revealed
save they render you victim to the
longing you want to bear, a willing nudist who buried her unspent confessions, aching for release
she is everything you are not
and yet in a hesitant moment you can pretend
you have the right dial and tune in to her song
that will lull her back from her gleeming audience
claim her yours
surely, surely, in all the years spent thinking of her
you found some way to make her your own?
Some method, spell, isn’t there a means to every wish?
Wordless, you know there is not
the unattainable sit just out of reach
lingering in their fancy of being regarded
untouchable.
And she? She is one of those fine
creatures you read of in novels, who make men
mad and women? Women are not mentioned for
our ardor is pressed flat along with the flowers from
the marsh we collect, I would if I could, string them
outside your house until the perfume woke you
from a dream about me, and you ran, barefooted along rail tracks like urchin dancer,
into my waiting arms, and as I think this, I know
you will no more run to me, than I could hypnotize
a snake not to bite, a feral cat not to scratch, a
pain not to hurt and cripple the daydream.
I don’t have mastery over you, nobody does,
you chew on rules for breakfast with black hot coffee and make
scolding and conquest a daily thing, in the brilliance of your
caramel-centered bedroom eyes, I see only an acknowledging
of control. whilst I, think of ways I might
stand out, be different, have something going for me
that could mark me worthy
it is of course, an impossible thing, a poison dart captured in my throat, quietly
hybernating or dying in drips and drabs
as you will never lay in my arms, molded to my shape and I will
not know your taste or how your lips part
with the first of many sighs, I cannot even
imagine touching your hand or pressing myself, small and hungering
close to you and knowing of what you smell, there in the stymen of your flushing bloom
the myriad ways you breathe in and out, the chorus of your existing, I
stand far, even when near, too far for comfort, perpetuate rain, disguising distress, I told myself as a young woman, do not
fall for the Siren’s call, she is merciless, she will
cut you without meaning, your futile search
for the key to her blistering heart
no closer
could last a life time and you’d stand, unpacking your fools errand, as a beautiful gown will
invariably spoil in predicted monsoon
she is ferocious and untame
the elongation of her beauty
a thing you must only weep over
when alone and inconsolate you imagine
a life time of wanting
what you can never, ever
capture.