The Girl from Crete

The thread of blood trickled

down the scales of the snake goddess.

Her labyrinth penetrated by love

and loss. Eyes follow along the walls

in sea-foam shade. The Minotaur walks

alone. Her purist areas persist

in memory. Alone she sits, back thrust

upon her. Her thread makes him flee.

It reasserts her purity, and yet,

demonizes her nakedness.

.

His shadow follows him across the sky.

At the edge of the inevitable cliff;

robes in the wind, bland colors,

low light, blue sky with sharp cloud.

To him, her name an epithet. Alone

in the Piazza. Long shadows and backs.

Silk thread one direction, blood trail the other.

.

As he left she slept with hand on stomach;

crying that won't come on her mind.

Her hand bloodied and cracked, imitating

life. She pulls on her pubescent hair.

.

She boarded a ship carrying trees and arrows

to leave the island of her birth.

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Portrait of a Girl Unfinished

The touch of skin (so soft) between shirt

and jeans; aperture of the hip – the bone –

like mountains shift in a skirt of fog. Finger-

print moon on red skin, is now fading. Glance

of Beautiful Medusa, fire hair tips

exposure cries for you. In dark you die

alive. Illuminated eyes, the counter-veil,

the bulb before it hurts. Sunrays across

the floor, in slanted forest negative.

She said she had been asleep. She calls

to bed now, replicating the feel

of hands, the asp under the pillow. Dead

between finger and skin. Fingertips of men, her

landscape – like cities: Steel and metal form

destroy the view with view. Dried up tear

ducts, eyes flash view to view to fill

the void. Her stomach; receding water before

the waves, the sand is brilliant light – nova

star. She takes only pictures with her

in frame of metal wire and gold. She takes

only the heart. The bed is filtered fire.

This iris diaphragm controls her desire -

born of midnight miscarriage upon

the back. Written in blood upon the sheets

is her – not you – not truth – no not the girl

inside. She plays the only song she knows

off-key upon the operation table,

and yet I sit and overlook with mask

off. Softly I pick up the brittle leaf

and try to feed it. She focuses in on me,

I feel the burn around my neck. “Asleep”,

She said. She tucks the sheets under the bed.

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