YOUR POMPEII
It’s fire season and I want to be a better god; to be your pompeii
but one morning I was not myself. I will tell you a secret-
I will tell you what the arsonist told me as he struck the match
against his teeth. that all those who create are the god
of something small- that the bed is once again a pyre
and my body an offering. I want to burn up in something-
want to be sage sweet and better with my hands
but the rivers still don’t bend for me; the heavens not a candle wick
for me. I will tell you what I saw that night- the heat lightning
and the shadow in the doorway. that I woke with ash beneath my nails.
that I went out to find the snow was pumice gray-
how I watched it fall all around me.
DRACO
the water rises and takes
the contour of a serpent-
of someone I have known.
draco was my favorite
constellation I could never find.
some things you are born into-
shedding skins; a golem tide.
I have been looking
in all the wrong places.
It couldn’t be scales
budding under my bruised knees;
It couldn’t be that I
have washed up here again.
I always thought I’d have
some other life- some other body
to coil around.
VELVETEEN
It’s Pisces season and so I
find the cheapest bottle of red
leave ruby rings on your glass table,
a deep purple in my throat.
I want my voice to feel like velvet-
want to be remembered the way
that you remember all the words
to Billy Joel songs. I have never
seen a live performance I did not
have religion for. I have never
brushed lips with anything worth
dying for which is not to say
I have not tried.
