The
Darker Half
Tonight,
loose souls
float
into scantily
clad
tree branches
in
hallowed shadows.
The
Otherworld door creaks,
cold
light illuminates
the
ghost-mother,
a
jack-in-the-box ready
to
spring forth.
I
try to salvage this date,
stitch
up its hymen,
gorge
on sugar orbs,
sketch
fire’s feeble warmth
with
orange Crayola,
but
nothing can dilute
the
briny depths. Dusk
dons
a garish clown mask.
I
stab a pumpkin’s skin
and
it becomes a squat child.
All
these years
after
we shuffled
from
house to house,
dressed
as pioneer girls
and
butterflies, filling
bags
and small stomachs,
all
these years later
I
am the costume
she
puts on to face
drab
everydayness,
shop
at the supermarket,
hide
behind desks
and
pay bills.
I
protect her better
than
her own small
bones
ever could.
Tonight,
my darker half
drops
her disguise, shakes
her
curls and her hips, trips
into
view so faintly
she
might be smoke
or
vapor at first.
The
problem is she will not die.
She
dances in the liminal
kitchen
in too-tall heels,
disfigured
by candles and red
wine,
stewed in the mind’s cauldron.
I
would sever the umbilical cord
but
I can’t undo
the
spell that binds us,
a
trick of the light
and
the dark.
The
truth is I took her
from
you. She took this day
from
me. When I wrestle
it
away, she wins--always, always
she
takes it back.
Skeleton Woman
Reach back, twist
through tango figure
eights, miles of hotel
ballroom floor, retrace
her
footing.
She was the darkest
story on the shelf
for so long, I forgot
she didn’t just die,
she
danced.
Her last steps echo in
the campus courtyard,
the nude brick building
where she was dragged away,
feet
bound.
She glides past shadow
bridges in Venice, Jewish ghetto
littered with lanterns,
buoyant ghosts who
refuse
to sink.
Rhythm parachutes into
the wasteland of repeated
November nights, spins
breath into her closed
coffin
ribs.
Her hands clench, claw
out of an underwater grave. Shaking free, she spirals
hips
in rattling circles,
faster,
faster.
Samba,
bachata,
ecstatic stomps—I drum
back her pulse,
half-moon flickers,
dancing
the flesh
back
onto her bones.
Light a
Lamp
At night in the darkness there is a
reckoning
between mind and heart,
a conversation that cannot be muted,
a torrent that will break all floodgates.
Not everyone knows why Psyche did it.
Why after night upon night of passion
with a faceless stranger, she chose
to light a lamp and behold his face.
Some say her sin was believing
doubts planted by meddling sisters.
Some say it was curiosity.
The oracle foresaw her fated
marriage to a winged serpent
and she sought to verify the claim.
Better the devil you know,
and all monsters appear harmless
when they sleep.
Imagine Psyche, her beautiful used body,
sleepless beside the sleeping husband
she knows and does not know.
She lights a lamp not to see him
but to see her path out of the room,
to leave the gold prison and seek a love
who will walk hand in hand with her
through crowded streets in late
afternoons.
Think about the moment before
she lit the lamp, the split second
when she might have hesitated.
Imagine how her hands must have
trembled as all hands do when
grasping life firmly for the first time.
How many nights did she lie awake
claustrophobic but caged,
clutching the tools of her liberation,
unable to move a muscle?
If suddenly her husband sighed
she lost her nerve, curled
her limbs in defeat like pages of a letter
never sent, forgotten in a desk drawer.
That night when she lit the lamp,
she finally rose from the ashes,
then crucially she turned back
to face the faceless.
She turned around as we all turn,
like Orpheus watching Eurydice
slip back into the mouth of hell.
Our eyes dilate with dual desires
to see and not see.
Nobody knows how long Psyche
gazed upon Eros as he slept.
Some say it was lamp oil splattering
his chest that woke him,
others say it was her tears.
Perhaps she cried seeing that he
was part God, part monster,
just like any other husband.
Maybe she mourned the girl-
self who died then, burned in
the furious fire of truth.
His first thought upon waking
was how she had never looked
so lovely, her eyes ablaze with knowing.
Then in the time it takes to strike
a match he inhaled sharply,
his first honest breath.
Naked and guilty in his boy-God
awkwardness, Eros scrambled
for sheets or shadows to hide in.
Psyche loomed over him decades older
now, defiant, dressed in her coat
and ready to walk out the door.
She remained still, unblinking,
even as the ground began
to shake in frightening spasms,
as their castle collapsed piece by
glittering piece.
The lamp was knocked to the floor,
flaming fingers stroked the silk bed
curtains.
Through the dust and smoke
he reached out to her, his eyes
pleaded and the roar of carnage
drowned out any words.
She would not save him, refused
to look away until the walls fell.
She could see meadows
and green hills again.
She remembered what the sun
was and wept, sinking to her
knees, bruising her bare legs in
the rubble, pressing her hands
together in thanks for the raising
of one light, the illumination of one
face in the dark.
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