Dragonsilver

i’ve forgotten the fire
that breathes forth deep from the throat
i’ve forgotten the fire
that roars from between the teeth

i lost the meaning of those words somewhere between
your wall and my door
and you did as well

the smoke lingers like the silver tail
awaiting to spike the heart once more
all the while
tongues lick wounds deep under the scales
remembering
remembering
that the wings folded to let us fall

Second Nature

(after reading Wild At Heart)

the first nature came to Eve

when she was fifteen. the call
to feel arms wrapped in
a downward vine motion, curled
from just below her raised grasp to her wanting
hips, the most barren part of her. Screaming
in the sincerity of life, of not being,
of fulfilling her, the HER
that cannot be
without another.

first nature failed
in its continuous promise,
taking what she could not give
because it wasn’t hers to give:
affirmation of manhood.

Adam, why do you not show your boys
how to be a man? Tell them adventure is life,
and without this adventure
life dies?

second nature became knowledge
when Eve became her own.

and every far sound called the listening out

—William Stafford, “Listening”

                                                

1.
between the window screen
near a grandmother’s pillow       up late again
without sleep        watching a movie

“stay away, don’t touch me” a stream-

lined semi shadows the echo

“stop hurting me”

house phone out

cell                   at her head

she grabs                     dials

            redials              a third time

as she shakes onto the porch

     barely gasping

into the phone to the answer   “911, what is your emergency”
:throat shaking                                    she sits on the step
explains           in detail          the words       moving
from beyond semi trailers                   fenced in

                        and 3 acres

of wooded lot

2.

between commercials

between programming

television reflects moods
emotions that are not spoken
            silence—         a semi-trailer door

                        slams   across the way

                        sending waves                   into eyes                not heard
wanting one hour        she cries inside    as she did before

                        with another

            she is here again          years later

cell phone left silent
is picked up                 to send loneliness a message
:second string              second place                second rung

sounds from emotionless trophy taken to bed

3.
between heart and head

            abandonment              comes from children
it is said

dad is the victim:
protecting the cubs?

from the harmful bitch?

for years hiding the bullet that kills her:

blindness is real           ;           silence is foolery