Tuesday, January 03, 2006

woman seeking woman...

... to press DELETE on my answering machine.
there's one old message there from Cliffy.

I've been working on my poems and wrote more on a poem I'd started months and months ago (the first time Cliffy and I were together). Scope it:

untranslatable passage

to Cliffy

your skin still carries the vein breaks of a strong fever,
that reminder of warmth evident in your hands

migrant spirits born by fire
your heat so strong your mother
ran to her mother’s
for tila and a touch on your tender head

bus ride to the border
three hours of heat
stealing into you
just one of the journeys
you were meant to decipher

others journeys met with you
and slowly, rather than feed the fire,
they wore your skin far too thin
made your eyes smoldering but sleepy

there was no one there to do a cura
to teach the prayer
to keep your spirit moving
your words don’t join
to hold the memory
what shivering has replaced your warmth?

like animals sneaking into your home for winter,
there isn’t enough blood circulating to stave off the cold
some transfusion your arms hooked
to the walls of your mother’s house


My friend Laura actually helped me look through a lot of poems as well as give me some much needed company. Because we've always had the same taste, and as I was in the mood to get rid of some stuff, I gave her a few frames, books and some Frida magnets. It feels good to give it up. She, in return, gave me incredible insight into some of my pieces. I'm enjoying the kind of work I've been creating lately : texture heavy with surrealism. And, surprising even to me, more individualistic. Feels right since poetry is so personal/specific.

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