The Houston Poetry Hoard

I am a dragon that lived in Houston. Here is my hoard.

1.

The remnants of the life I lived before

Shine through my puff-ball curtains

And paint the hair on the cat creamy

Tiny light seeker pressed against the glass

The same sun beats down on the antique windows

A thousand miles away

In a place that smells like sage and castile soap

The remnants of the life I lived before

Hang on my walls

Displaced like water in a bath

As I slowly lower myself into this new place

That does not yet smell of sage

Crisp mustard and pale sour cream

Mingle with the new flavors that tease me here

Just out of the reach of my lips

The promise of them

Rubs itself against my shins like a cat

2.

From what wells do you pour yourself out?

What furrows have you carved in yourself?

How many crops have weathered and withered

By the sweep of your hand?

Bow your head then look towards the light

That splinters your fingertips into fractals

Hear the birdsong that draws you forward

Forward

Forward

Forward

Run with chest bared to the sky

Each footfall singing forward

Forward

Forward

Forward

3.

I am standing on a threshold

Between what I have always been told and what I am now coming to know for myself

I lie in a bed with new sheets that do not yet have my scent

White noise blurring the edges of the night

Because I have not yet learned how to sleep alone

I have yet to tease out from the nooks and crannies all those crawling things that shiver and scratch in the hollow hours

A galaxy of dust motes is disturbed when I throw back my curtains and let in the drowned light of a hurricane dawn.

I smile as I am wreathed in sunlight

My mind is sticky with the steaming dew

That boils on the leaves of the cactus on the porch

I live in these fever-days as I begin to cross

Threshold after threshold

With no witnesses other than the denizens of my dreams

“It’s hard to run away when everything is so crystal clear”

Is the refrain that rises with the evaporating dew

And descends once again as the storm hits

Crowning me with lightning

As I am reminded that I have demonstrated so many new and creative ways

To hate myself

Everyday.

What would happen if I were to say

No longer?

4.

What do your hands know?

What do they remember?

You taught them to glide

Along the peaks and long slopes

That rise and fall with breath beneath the sheets

You taught them to explore and probe

Deftly in the dark

Guide-less in the satin darkness

Save for the tightening of svelte muscles

Moans and gasps taught your hands to roam

Two silent cartographers surveying the landscape

Of a shivering mountainside

Exasperation and ecstasy separated by an isthmus

Beside which many an intrepid wanderer has found themselves drowned

I crave a pair of vagabond hands

That know me not as foreign soil

Curious, familiar roaming of a map well drawn

My patriot, lover of the soft valleys and prairies and gentle hills

Indifferent to the tectonic shifts that may render the landscape unfamiliar

Willing to be a stranger again

To relearn what their hands have forgotten

Would those hands be willing to find me again in the dark

Of my own making

As I try to make sense of the topography?

5.

How much has my body given

and how much have I never given back?

the scale tips and pours itself out down my chest

the giving and the taking and the never giving back

runs across my belly,

my thighs

i rub it away with my palms

but all i do is spread the stain

6.

The girl who who doesn’t have a name wanders in the kitchen

pot

pan

mug

bowl

vessel

hole

The girl who forgot her name wonders in the bedroom

bed

book

chair

sheet

nightmare

sleep

The girl who gave away her name wanders in the stairway

step

stair

rise

stall

portrait

fall

The girl who remembers a name wonders in the foyer

lock

leaf

mat

knob

doorway

sob

The girl who is choosing a name wanders outside

7.

I seem to fall in love the same way I cook

I peel back layer after layer from a hundred cloves of garlic

I tremble with the knowledge of what comes when all the undressing is done

What flavors will rush across my tongue when I tastes for the first time

The hand that holds the knife has too much haste and not enough speed

I can never seem to go fast enough

So I end up slicing my fingers over and over and over again

The trouble is, when they heal, they leave no scars

So I am free to forget again what happened the last time

Slicing and healing as my pots simmer and boil over

Because I forgot to turn the heat down when I had the chance

8.

These pretty boys need to stop making it so easy to fall in love with them

They simply cannot grow out their curls

And walk around with languorous gaits

I’m going to carry scissors with me

To relieve any offender

Of his traitorous curls

These pretty girls need to stop making it so easy to fall in love with them

They simply cannot grow above 5 foot 5

And speak with low voices ripped from the mountains

I’m going to carry stilts with me

So I always need to stoop to catch their amorous whispers

I am so easily taken

9.

Intimacy is a candle wick

that stands at attention

Begging for a flame to consume it