Uoy evol tnod I

*Image found HERE

Uoy evol tnod I

Like Syrinx, barefoot at the river’s edge,
a plural of nouns,
knees muddy, hands worthless.
Choices were made,
and prayers were prayed
and prying servants and maids
and among them worshiped gods
of smoke and linen,
dead trees, an empty chair,
or worse
a temple or a church
with no priest to lie to you.

I ask my heart to be still,
like a pin cushion,
let the lady have her auburn dress;
let the bitch have her blood moon.
Be still, while the magician saws through.
I am mute with puddles,
I am dirt, I am dog, I am dime,
dinner, dilution, dissipation. Done.
A witch set ablaze,
I have scrapped the closets
for garments,
closed tightly the scents like potions,
keepng them safe from wind.
I cried in an empty room.
I cried at a crowded concert.
I cried in the cab, cried in the bathroom,
the kitchen, the busy street, the dead end,
I salvaged the drawers for trinkets,
I made choices that you orphaned.

I take my sorrow to the butcher
like I accept I am meat for cutting;
I let him chop of my head,
hack off my arms, split my ribs
and I shall plant them in the ground
and weep for growing
countless more of worthless me’s;
I will let him hack and slash,
play with it, snip, snap, pull –
like betrayal, like brutality,
like ten more me,
sliced to steak, like
my thighs, returning to the lord,
like my face, held by strong hands,
like my eyes, like snuffed candles,
like gut feeling versus the choices
between fat fingers in the early morning shift
lining the black beard of someone who doesn’t care;
just dices.
I will listen as you speak of me as past tense;
I will let the butcher make a knife shelf in my chest.

And soon, the silence will wrap us like lasso.
The trees will quiet down, the birds will fall asleep.
And the groceries will need doing, and splitting,
and fitting the shelves and there will be aftermaths in need of fixing
with kisses on the neck.
The priest will come to his church and he will clasp his hands,
and incense will burn in the temple and pictures will corrode
and your soul will slut its way inside some dark abode
and I will ask What shall become of me?
What of the dreams, the bed sheets, the bedroom, the bed,
the loneliness? What of the waiting?What of the choices

of where to go, where to be, where to lay the head, where to cry next
and where to weave the sparrows? Which colour, which parcel,
which flower? Which name, which surname, nickname, sweet thing,
which honey, which plum, what kind of sugar, whose teaspoons? What for breakfast, what for lunch, and choices like the spiral, the farfale or the sea-shell macaroni?

How do I call you
come the morning?