MIGRATORY

I paddled inside you,

my mallard on your pond.

And then ¡away! I flew.

You waved and waved, alone.

ARACHNOLOGIST

My page-spiders

weave their wordwebs

inside your head,

to decipher.

UNSEASONED

Don’t come to me in Yellow,

when thermometers are full

of fever, of sweat, of woe

and nights are by daylight culled.

And please avoid me in Brown.

Environments start to die

and virgin forests ungown

and bare scarcity outcries.

Avoid my presence in White:

Lives lie sleeping in the ground

away from the strangled light,

away from festival sounds.

But in Green I’ll wait for you

and in Green we’ll reunite.

Green will welcome a rendezvous

between my cloud and your kite.

JASMINE AND COAL

I fell out of the orgasm

that left me bitter and old.

The air was filled with jasmine

but my tongue tasted of coal.

I lived like a revolution.

In the midst of brick and steel

I thought I could find ablution

if I never bowed or kneeled.

I believed only a hedon

was immune to slavery,

misunderstood as freedom

the struggle for ecstasy.

COCOON

I saw my externist today

and got my prescriptions filled

for a well-curated array

of armor auras and pills

to protect me against weathers

and germs. And also to blunt,

like a cuirass wrought of leather,

the intimacy of hugs

and the taste and touch of kisses.

In this invisible plate

I can discover what bliss is,

now that I’m inviolate.