Come to me.
             your inscribed
                slashes of verse
                branded upon
             the juice of
           my tongue
     a specter
    of the ultimate gift
      as we allow
         the magic
              to rise
               and peel off in
         swathed, aching
         layers,
                undone
Each stratum of
  dermis shed
       is a prayer for
         our succulent
                     redemption
                        Each shadow of
                          silky cuttlefish caress
                   a plea for sanctity
            or perhaps simply
            being loved
        into a frenzy
        of sanity
            healing in waves
                    of electric eyes
                          You open me
                    like a holy book
              and I am suddenly
                  filled with light
           as you unlock
the blessings
from my spinal fluid
and I am a priestess
  on her altar
       arms raised,
         love braised
              into slick-lit wonder
               a spiral cone rising from
                            ground to crown
                 chakric palette pulsating
            phosphorescent ripples
on deep-sea creatures
Your ubiety
       slakes my naked,
            somatic anatomy
                   a mere shelter
                          for our souls    
                       a working
       of muscle and skin
    with heart strings pumping
                    the essence within
                     Our brainwaves
                                    sizzle in
                         glandular fire
                        as pheromones
                       envelope us
                   like incense
This goes far beyond the
wet cuntflush of desire
beyond the embellishment
of moistened sword
  It is the sacred dance
         of souls that merge
            before even touching
                      pre-verbal animal
                   first light of mankind
                          in ancient swells
                                 of earth that
                           rise like sparks
                the constellations
           of firework chimes
       in arcs of
chiseled
         dark

John and Tuesday slipped away,
I remember well the day.
Working in the garden,
Just a few corners away,
That Tuesday.
I was planting, turning spades,
Adding compost to gaunt soil.
John wasn't in my thoughts Tuesday.
Not like today.

The garden thrives.
The splash of water
Transports memory's eye.
We sit outside The Trout,
He reads to Paul and I,
Below an Oxford sky,
Under cap and pint:
*Think where man's glory
Most begins and ends,
And say my glory was
I had such friends.

I've been waiting to grieve
as if
the aftermath of Death
will come calling
like a long-jilted lover.

Maybe
I have forgotten
how to miss
the dearly departed
and there will be
no more tears.

I've been watching the road.
Nobody wearing somber colors
has come
walking up the hill yet.

There is no
plaintive song
calling on the wind.

I was my brother's keeper
for many years.
Maybe
I am too angry
to weep.

sheesh Eliot,
half the poets miffed at your
unintended deriding,
but sexism in poetry a knife made
from a man's rib dividing, again?
too cruel to contemplate for defending

perhaps the site hijacked by the NSA,
doing the bidding of ten old white men?

as recompense go to thy server,
code in an alternating name starting today,
ShePo somehow springs to mind

Mother's Day an excellent commencement
to begin our regendering

P. S. everybody knows I am a girl, right?

It occurs to me,
perhaps not everybody aware
of the inside joke,
the e-joke,
Nat is short for
Natalie