And a voice spoke to me,
“the alphabet will be your lodestar”
and I woke from the dream enraged!
Why do his letters get to be so important?
Why can’t I paint or play music,
why can’t I sculpt clay or knit?
Why do those 26 letters
have to be my guiding star?
“Well,” said the soul,
“you can either come to them
squealing like a noisy pig,
or you can come to them with grace.”
Woman
This Woman Was Different
When she spoke,
I heard the eternal phoenix
rise from its fiery ashes.
And with no end in sight,
I knew only this,
right from the beginning
I could be hurt.
So I had to talk myself down
from the terror
that, if she ever left me,
I could write heart-breaking poetry
forever.