Danielle Favorite
Back to youTonight the sky’s a dusty chalkboard
with a translucent moon cut from thin paper. Love, draw me some yellow stars so I can find my way back to you. Insomnia Observation It wasn’t until I looked through
the moon that I realized oily, black leeches were feasting on my wild heart. “Too many daydreams,” explained my father. “Not enough light,” explained my mother. I drank saltwater to dry them out; I floated in the ocean to draw them out. They would not leave. My heart was draining. I became white watercolor with a hint of pink on my cheekbones, arctic blue on my lips. I only have so many heartbeats; they smack against my rib cage like birds hitting a window. Lunar Waltz
Underneath tongue and flesh
we are metallic skeletons dancing and dipping into curtsies below fiery stars. There is a gash in the sky where crescent bone shines through, like our bright smiles when you ask for a dance. We are women born of the white moon and air quietly creaks in our joints as we twirl underneath your hand, like a spider at the end of a strand. Our round eyes shine like new pennies and our giggles tickle the back of your ear, like the hint of tiny bat wings. Kiss us, undress us, tuck your flaming heart behind ours: radiate our hollowness. Summer 2011
Your name will always taste
like sweet chardonnay. The faint melt of daylight always fools us; summer's facade of lasting forever There were you and me, both lying naked on your mattress as the fan tried to dry the sweat we exhaled. Our sighs mimicked the soft uncurling of new grape leaves, eager to taste sunlight and to be caressed by dusted air: breathe and kiss, give and take. The year of the woman
On the summer solstice
she set the pot roast on fire, fled to the forest from the flame-screaming house, left her husband inside. She bared her almost opaque breasts and the moon flushed. The trees bent--they try to imitate the curve of her hips and the curl of her breath (--they will never understand softness--) Starlight from the past clung to her bruised skin. The stars understand how blood gathers just beneath the surface and she demanded the universe make love to her as it would an amber star. The wind cradled her scorched hair and the grass held her from slipping through the earth like feathers from a shedding comet and as she embraced the burnt, copper night, her heart cracked in two. Stripped
I am made of sea-foam,
intricate blue and white lace. Where is the wave that is bound to wash me away? Undress my flesh, leave my delicate heart: brittle pile of bird bones. |
This morning is tinted with ghost-lightRipe honeydew cubes glisten on the cutting board.
I cover the walls with pages from Vogue: lips and ribs and skin. I have two wrists, one navel and three voices. Rub honey on my lips. My skin cracks like a cocoon; a skeleton walks out and sunlight passes through. Drawstring ☊Lake Michigan sand rests within my bones;
it slows the timing of my heart and scratches the vowels budding on my wet tongue. I imagine waiting for you on a bench of ghosts with coffee and binoculars, observing the rush of continuous flutter as seagulls settle and then unsettle, as indecisive as the mottled lake. The afternoon light is brisk, pulls my breath like a buoy chain-- my heart sounds like it's underwater, its beats drive the tide that draws you, like an undertow, to me. From my bedroom window
I wait for you
between the shoulder-blades of winter and summer solstice. Please, thaw my frosted heartbeat. I'm ready for the supernova that is your lips-- breathe fire and ignite my breath. Hold my frost-bit hand, melt the ice from my voice so I can sing. The moon is ripe-- unfreeze me, free me! so I can pluck it, like a berry from the charcoal sky. I've seen your name etched with frost on my bedroom window, winter cursive on glass. I call for you, the breath of my silence soaks into the night, and I watch snowflakes drop into my eyes; I shiver, a star flickers out. unsaid
Like the night, I too
contain a moon within my chest, a tiny condensed sphere of rejected light. My nerves tingle and mime the twinkling of planets and my name dissolves into tails of shooting stars. My moon disperses itself throughout my body-- look at my veins, at the blue light pulsing. Some nights, while shivering alone in bed, I hear my moon wane, slowly like a revolving door. I sleep naked, like the night and soft light perforates my skin like a colander. Hush heart, hush the moon whispers to me, my soul ablaze with the tongues of a hundred hungry stars. Something with feathers
She cast her name to the rats
the night she drank from the moon's swollen teat. It's light dribbled down her neck and flushed her skin with lunar heat: eyes inflamed white, winged breath, she orbits her heart. Woman
I am laced with broken
wires that spark just beneath my skin--they burn little black stars amidst my charred freckles and my speech is electrical smoke: for I am both woman and dragon. My heart screams with high voltage, pumping electrons through my lightning-scribed body. I pulse for you, through each mundane maelstrom of a minute--you, who shocked me with the current of life. and now, I am charged with luminescence. |
