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Danielle Favorite


Back to you

Tonight 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.

Picture
                                                                            

​Danielle Favorite's profile

Go to page 2 of Danielle Favorite's poetry

This morning is tinted with ghost-light

Ripe 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.

                                                                                                                        Go to page 2 of Danielle Favorite's poetry

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