~*~
Confessions of a Heterosexual
for my mother
I have longed to become a lesbian
since the day you left, questioning
your own sexuality. What sin
had coupled you with a man, bearing
children like an ordinary woman?
And now, your apartment, blind
dates and book groups. Luncheons.
The inevitable Pastsy Cline.
But I like men. My guilt:
bodies sharp and thick,
his chest, his impossible weight.
And a mouth that finds me out, different
one space of body to the next
through the locked equations of our sex.~*~
Tell Me What Moves
My mother visited this river once;
she didn't jump in, but she may as well have.She screamed all her secrets into the weeds,
like Midas' hair-cutter,
so now they sigh: I want to move.
I want to move.Tell me what moves.
River rocks move like shifting eyes or the pull of planets.
Hands move. Heat moves. Birds and pain move.Tell me what moves.
Tell me why I drove four hundred miles
to find weeds that know your name.~*~
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