poems for adam and eve

2009-03-23T02:22:00.000-07:00

Being human means we get to be everybody

In the story

All at once.

I am that ugly sister, thinking

About the certain slant of light

Which glances off the scissors

As I stuff my feet into

Cinderella’s Manolos (bitch).

And I am that prince

Who, 10 years on,

Can’t remember what

She was wearing,

Only how she looked

When I found her the second time around.

And I am the butler who still works for her

And is happy just to be near her,

But sometimes spits in his royal tea.

And I am she

Who wore the slipper,

Who sat in ashes and dreamed,

Who had a stroke of luck

And postnatal depression,

Who gained 45 pounds

And forgave her sisters,

Who has shadows tattooed

Under her eyes

And all around her heart,

And who is happier than ever before,

Perhaps ever after.

The Ocean Has No edges

2007-07-16T03:37:00.000-07:00

The ocean has no edges.
Neptune may tickle its chin
For it to gape its salty jaws
And drink defiant kings in.

But the ocean has no edges,
And loud may it bark and cough,
The sentimental may drown in its arms,
But I shall never fall off.

'I Came To Look,' He Said

2007-07-16T03:35:00.000-07:00

‘Over icy shoals of freezing fish
I came to look’, he said.
But I had been building houses of sand,
On the dry cold shore of the dead.
‘I did not stay in the boat,
I did not witness the storm,
I sought where the calmness lay,
I thought I might stay warm’.
Yet still, his toes tipped on the tide,
He would not turn his head.
‘Over centuries of knowing you
I came to look’, he said.

Moon

2007-04-29T05:31:00.000-07:00

The moon is a red egg
Unbalanced on the sea
Soft around the edges
An illuminated ovum
Pulling me in and out
Binding my arms to my back
As I run for the land
Calling my name
Promising my lost memories
Reminding me where I came from
Drawing me perpetually back.

Your Voice- It Shuffles Deep

2007-04-29T05:16:00.000-07:00

Your voice moving me still,
It shuffles deep in the underbelly of my thought.
A phantom I cannot chase, I cannot kill
Your voice. Moving me still
I find the memory pinching at my will.
On the periphery of peace I have caught
Your voice moving me. Still
It shuffles deep in the underbelly of my thought.

Holy Time in Eternity

2007-04-27T07:03:00.000-07:00

In terms of eternity your age does not exist.
In terms of history you are still a baby,
Even by the reckoning of Creationists.

You are not the past.

You are not the past of yourself
Or your parents
Or your lovers
Or your children.

You can tell that from your eyes;
The same ones that opened
On the day of your beginning.
The same ones that open
Every day,
Every beginning.

You can tell from your bones
That stretch out and over
The years that you are counting;
The same bones that pushed into your mother’s belly
From the inside out.
The same bones tell your story;
You are yourself again
Born every morning.

You are not the future.

You are not potential (your own)
Or hope (other people’s).

You are not what you will do
Or what you have done.
You are not how tired you are,
Or how much more difficult it is,
How your skin has changed,
Or how you have surprised yourself.
You are not even only this moment
Which I am glad to be a part of.

In the eternity before now
You were spinning through space
Knocking on various doors;
The dinosaurs,
Ice and moving rock,
Potatoes rotting in Ireland,
Fires in London,
Zemstvos in Russia,
Fires in Germany,
A plague of frogs and locusts,
Fires in Pompeii,
Napoleon’s new calender,
Slaves building pyramids,
Roosevelt’s New Deal,
Lions eating Christians,
Christians eating the world,
Henry the Eighth and headless women,
Women claiming seats on buses,
Women from under the hooves of horses
Claiming choices,
Holding hands through history
As soon as Eve had daughters,
Keeping the world wound up and vital
So you could make it here;
To now;
To be.

No, I do not think you are old.
There is time for ageing after death.