The Cincinnati Poetry Hoard

I am a dragon that lived in Cincinnati. This is my hoard.

1.

She stands in the threshold

And I am reminded

That people find new and creative ways

To hate themselves

Every day.

She stands in the threshold

The arch window crowning her with lightning

The midnight sky dances behind her

Thunder marks the dropping of her tears

So many voices

She has forgotten which belong to her

A mind like a candle flame

A halo of inferno hair dimly shines

In the intermittent light

2.

Deep is my desire to kiss the wolf on his mouth

The wolf will choke on me

I will claw myself from out his belly

Covered in slime

And howl with this new voice

I have torn from his throat

Deep is my desire to kiss his mouth

And from behind the cage of his teeth

Glare with lamp-lit eyes

At emptiness as dark as the sea

To shake him from the roots of his teeth

Break those teeth

And sing with this new voice

Torn from his throat

3.

leaving home for home

kissing the door knobs

the shutters and thresholds

the word

“Soon”

hangs thick in the air

like so many motes of dust.

then to arrive like a great gush of water

disturbing the sediment

of rock bed life

kissing the floorboards

rose bushes and mirrors

to leave again as an exhale

and to be breathed in again

arriving home from home

among the dust motes

the word

“Soon”

still hangs there

4.

If I could but carve you from out my mind

I’d send up a prayer

To stitch the hole left in me

I’d banish you beneath the pews

Chase you out the glass doors

And curse your holy name

As you run

Raw footed down rain stained streets

My courage is the blunt edge of a knife

I would sing you from me but I have forgotten the words

The music has abandoned me

And left me dripping on the cathedral floor

5.

I don’t have the words

They are not grown in me

I can’t find them

Though I reach out into the dark water

They wriggle like moon-painted fishes

Through my tiny, ineffective fingers

Your paper mouth brushes against mine

It burns me

To turn my lips to fire

to bare my teeth

to burn you, too

Your body echoes against mine

I have room enough for us both

In my cavernous expanse

You reverberate. The sound is beautiful

So you listen enraptured

And echo off my hollow chest

All I want is a place in the dark

Where you haven’t touched me

But after that night

It doesn’t exist anymore

6.

Their words are dust

Blink them from your lashes

And gaze ever forward

Divorce yourself from their machinations

They are stones in your mouth

Rolling over your tongue

And keeping your voice from its purpose

They choke you

These river polished stones

Banish them

Hold your light to your open chest

Fill the cavern with flame

Watch the moths

Flicker in your glow

Banish them

Spit the stones at your feet

To make a boulder

Brace your tired hands against it

This is your purpose

To crest the hill and fall into the pit

To breathe

And brace yourself once more

Against the stone

Burnished by the oil of your hands

7.

I want no rustle of wings

No raindrop patter

When my throat opens and pours itself out

I want a vessel of silence

To contain the sound

Like so much blood spilling from an artery

Shifting paper rubbing together

Static in my ears

I crave the font of silence

To pour itself into me

So that I may fill it again with my noise

8.

In the mornings of Cincinnati

The trains sing

I didn’t know what it was at first

Some ghostly whistling heralding the sun

A concert with birdsong

There are no trains near enough to see

But they have voices

That reach long fingers

Across the sun chased sky

Tickling shadows out of the corners

And crags that crinkle the city

Into impossible wrinkles

9.

I used to walk up the stairs at 5:00 EST

I’d linger in the pools of sun stain

On the green tile steps

And smell the cooking of all those who made their lives around me

The first level smelled of curry

Yogurt and mutton— musky, dun colored scents

That sang of mangoes and ancient gods

I’d walk past the rose stained glass window

Chips of tile gathered in the corners of the steps

The dust of a hundred lives huddled— the only place our beings commingled

On the second level, the smells were never exact from the right hand door

They sang of improvised concoctions made with, perhaps, too many herbs

Starchy steam crept out from under the heavy wooden door

Like a fat cat slinking out to prowl in the heady summer night

I’d turn to their neighbor and endeavor to pluck apart the scents

Rice and fragrant chicken— bright red songs of precision

As each smell folded itself ingeniously into a tight pocket

That was taught to dance by aged fingers ten thousand miles away

When I’d reach the final landing, rarely would I go straight in

I’d linger outside our door

And smell, listen, wait for the signs of the pair of souls

Who made their own patchwork of scents

All gathered in our old apartment

It’s own little landscape of adventurous cooking

Most of it outside of our skill level

Macarons or sushi or chicken braised in vermouth

Some of it so devastatingly simple

Corn chowder that sang with a voice of wilted basil

A smoothie with too much peanut butter

I could follow my nose home

From wherever the hunt of my life drives me.

10.

I listen for the voice among the choir

That belongs to me

At times she rises and I hear her timbre like polished teak

And other times she is lost in the swell