A few poems

Fashion Tips from Atlantis 2

My buckets are filling too fast, certainly

Middle toe, left foot, points and reaches, I feel it through my bones
it nudges a bucket over the side, too close to spilling over
I’m at that point of devolution, recruiting all limbs for that absolute truth
Yet for each one thrown back, another floods over

The shanty just wasn’t made for waves like this.
Rusted nails squirm loose from grey planks
And the tiller broke before it was even mine

It is true that I could have dressed the part better
But here I am in a crème negligee

On my body it is tattered, soaked, only minutely tangible
Of course I wear it so distressingly with flip-flops and a trash bag
What if I had waited, strapped on the seatbelt, bit my tongue?

There was a chance lost in history
to leave it on the rack
preserve it in plastic, waiting timelessly as carbon
for me to make an assumption
into ladyhood.

I could have ordered a uniform instead
Done up so shiny with badges, tassles, and heroics

Had the days been different that would have been me
But here I am all shivers, out of fashion’s favor

It took till now to get it.
I never wanted words with the waves
Had just tolerated how it tossed me
Pushed me onto my back
Pulled my hair down
And I looked it straight in the face

I had laughed when it lapped at my toes.

The thought that comes to me now,
Watching the shanty splinter away
Watching the buckets flood over
The ocean in my lap now
My body struggling back
Wrapped in lacey crème.

The thought that comes to me now,
Is that he, the wrong one, the new and the strange;
He would have definitely given me a compass,
A treasure map, and a good pair of oars.
He would have paid for my oxygen tank,
My flippers, wetsuit, and snorkel.
He would have given me a walkie and
He would have done it all with a smile
He would have sealed it with a kiss.

But I was born in August beside the ocean,
And those waves,
Those waves they whispered my name.

My Own Universe

Ascension to the empyrean cycles decline into the abyss:
Within the body, there is a universe
Within the universe, there is a never-ending cyclone
A whirlwind of plasticity, it personifies ouroboros
Never-ending, like the story; didn’t I see that snake there?
And didn’t he want to brand his own skin with it?
In the universe, there is a cyclone and a serpent, yes
But I swear I’ve seen a child there before
And I swear I’ve seen him there before
And I swear I’ve seen me there before
But I don’t swear on any of it
Because I don’t swear at all
Except when frustrated
Or crushed