poems

Today I’ve got some old poems for you, some you have read before, some are new.

enjoy

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187

I’ve spent so many winters

writing love letters to historical figures.

The woman of wars and woes

Goddesses of myth

Infanta Maria

And Yaa Asantewaa

And The Golden Stools on which they sit.

My darling Gentileschi

with the beheading blade,

Of brush and paint.

Artemisia who slayed her Assyria aggressor.

Where are all those huntresses of Artemis?

Mine is a cult of the moon and of soft bodies.

But why when I came to you,

Did I treat you as a mortal?

-A

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200

To be young and brave is no great feat

For you know nothing,

And in your ignorance

know of nothing that can hurt you

But to be old and brave,

To maneuver around all that fear

The fear that comes with knowing

And the type of knowing that comes from having done, and having been hurt.

To navigate those deep waters and to be brave

and to stand full chested at the front of that ship and face those waves

And turning tides

That is something.

-A

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184

The iconoclasm of our love.

When it was over,

It was like a library burning down

Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria

It almost sounds like your name

Gone are the tomes and tapestries of all that was us.

Our jokes

and our fights

and our sex

and our art.

All burnt.

in the great schism of our love.

-A