An ember, hot poker, a cry, a drop, a crash—

the Miller tells his tale with relish.

And here alone in the Mill City I’ll embellish

The story just a bit and a little slapdash.

The river foam isn’t flour-white, but flour’s not white

Only bleached

And I’m beached

On a riverbank without a fight.

There is no flood

Only flour, and ice in the blood

And concrete and mud....

You have become soft, I whisper

When urine stings my nose

When smoke smarts my eyes

When shouts grate my ears.

You have become soft, I cry

When I long for a smile

When I ask for some sweetness

When I look for a cushion or shade.

You are soft and pliant as cheese

You are soft and wispy as leaves

You are soft and easy as rain.

But then again, perhaps I am not soft.

Perhaps I am ripe....

If a man would be a leader, let him be a bridge.

If a woman would be a leader, let her be a pylon.

Let her slice against the current, watching waterbirds fly on

Beyond her sight over the distant ridge

Where rapids stretch their legs and meander

Out into the world. Let her buttress with steely arms

The passersby who fear no harm

From great arches, their master and commander.

Gathering barnac...

The curve of your hip flares out like a queen’s crown,

And your hair is the mantle of a king.

Buried under wind driven snow or ash

we can’t—or don’t—think of the kingdom’s fall.

Where your calf curves out and buckles in, I watch and I want to weep.

That is the only logical response to such ecstasy....

Cast your nets wide, I tell the young people with big eyes and empty hearts,

Throw fishing lines out, spinning until you have woven yourself a web

Or a mat

Or a blanket.

Take courage, I say to my students, because if you cast enough lines the world will begin to catch them steady.

You will find fish in your net, meals in your web, prayer upon your mat, warmth in your blanket.

And so here...

I turn my belly skyward for your viewing pleasure.

Does this please you?

Your gaze scorches this skin-patch, but I don’t flinch.

Would you notice if I did?

My tongue lolls out, hungry for the taste of your knowing fingers.

May I lick them?

I thirst, I pant, I am want itself, I am inflated with desire.

Won’t you fill me?

Your gaze is fickle, but I am faithful. I am patient.

I must wait....

I long to be a blank space in your history.

I long for your touch, for your fingers to twist

and pull at the strands of my signature.

Say my name.

Your silence is my death.

Your silence presses my bones deeper into earth, dirt dampening the cries in my lungs.

Say my name.

My son was king, my son survives.

My son is not I, I am not my son nor my daughters nor their dynasty.

Say my name...

It is hard to be loved.

If you are stone, I am flint.

Shards split off in the friction of loving

And light fires of smoke and soot....

The sound of my needle piercing linen is

As crisp as a cherry popping forth from red lips

As round as a plum pressed to pink tongue.

I draw pink thread through each wound I make,

Suturing past to present.

The hole of this needle gives way to the eye of a skull, then another.

A hole in the shape of a nose blooms in negative space, a Bermuda Triangle ignorant of scent on the air.

Holes be...

Just a thank you note to say that

Once you were bespectacled, respectable as

the stack of yellowed paperbacks behind your

mouth that smacks of wis-dom, wise judgement,

heavy as a cudgel in the contours of my brain.

Your words hung in the air, light as a wrecking ball

and there were angels in the atmosphere. Their blood is on your hands, which were extended, palms up,

full of gifts that I savo...