A Ginger's Devotion

Our hands nuzzle
Worn ridges
Against fresh silk
Your thumb stroking symphonies
Against my cocoon flesh.

In the darkness
I burn and
Pledge.
You smolder too.

I drink your scent
As my lips skirmish the velvet
Of your neck,
When I burrow deep on
Hunt for fire against
Ice calculations
Of insomniac nights.

I blame you
For this brilliant inferno
Dancing merrily atop
Stone walls and supple flesh.

Ice Queen hearts feeble
Beside soldier prowess,
Aged in vain
For a ginger devotion
Blazed and weaved.

Francisco Morning

Today was the last morning

I woke up wearing

The leopard suit

Across my naked flesh,

An empty bottle

Nested in the spot

You should have been.



Today I woke up with my last black eye.

My skin puckered purple

Festered blue around the edges

And a patch of yellow

At the crease.



The night before I’d fallen

From the stiff new

Leather couch,

My face kissing linoleum

As your fist

Cracked my side.



The mahogany night-table cushioned my fall

Its hunkered legs staked the crevice of my ribs

As

I dropped.



You left me, there,

The shattered vase

Lay siege to the floor,

Steel shards painted

My fingers

Red.



You walked out that

Damn door.



Today was the last time I woke up crying.

The yellow satin pillowcase tear-soaked

And

Blood-stained.

The cloth faded

Every happy memory.