A woman speaks

Moon marked and touched by sun  

my magic is unwritten

but when the sea turns back

it will leave my shape behind.  

I seek no favor

untouched by blood

unrelenting as the curse of love  

permanent as my errors

or my pride

I do not mix

love with pity

nor hate with scorn

and if you would know me

look into the entrails of Uranus  

where the restless oceans pound.

Power

The difference between poetry and rhetoric

is being ready to kill

yourself

instead of your children.

I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds

and a dead child dragging his shattered black

face off the edge of my sleep

blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders

is the only liquid for miles

and my stomach

churns at the imagined taste while