Silverfox Stigmata

a love poem

A she-devil hell-bent on landing in Louisiana, I was stark-raving broken, discarding pieces of myself as fast as the axe could swing. I gave up my right to a fair trial that night on Bourbon Street, the vicodin and the hand grenades, the distant lions roaring in their cage, everyone shrieking with nothing to say. My particles came apart in a buttery southern haze and I was vapor, I was steam. (I floated up to the stars. I told them everything.) Below sea-level but first: the scythe edge of a crescent moon over the Rockies, the chill and then the shiver as it whispers against the wrist. (You really can’t afford to live like this.) I lost my virginity to a western saddle, to an internal battle, to a death rattle. I lost it to a catheter, to an Indian summer, to a boy with sticky fingers. I lost it to a disease. Undercover with the sacrificial lambs, I sprint through cities holding my still-pumping heart, (Carefully! With both hands!) My love, I’m sorry for turning my body into an organ harvesting scam. Never enough, she’s never enough! I was only built with enough for me, and still, it’s hard to breathe! I went back to the valley where our horses were never buried. I broke out in stigmata, palms turned to bloody cherries. My body, the coal mine. My blood, the canary.

On the Last Summer Solstice before the plague years hit, we entwined our rib cages and they perfectly fit. There was no room for doubt, centuries passed in slow motion. All we could do was hold on, our knuckles white, and juxtapose my luxurious promises with your comforting lies (“We will get through this. We will keep you safe. You will not catch it. You will not die.”) And now we kill monsters in the rain, clutching our bloody calloused hands, teeth shining and insane. (Wait until the bioweapons leak.) We glow amongst the star-eaters, doze beside the bottom-feeders, and wager with the rotten creatures who dream sideways just like me. I’m a reformed whore, a rejected angel, a dirty joke, but from the moment our lifelines tangled I knew who you were and I was not afraid. (I have known you always. You are the dream where I blindly weep in grateful melodies but still remain aware. I wander through western ghost towns guided by bioluminescent tears and the knowledge that I am profoundly loved but I cannot find you, cannot remember your name or even your face... But look, up ahead, a silver fox is waiting for me, he is standing perfectly still, sober and patient in the moonlight. He is holding my heart so delicately between his jaws. He is keeping it safe.)