praise poem

Deborah Steinmair

there are days god knows when the poet drinks whisky all morning
when her pale eyes are twin gashes in a face that hates the world
but there are days of dark enchantment
in the small of the night her sinuous words
discover new planets and render them habitable
on a winter's afternoon curling like smoke
her body, a primitive sculpture, starts to move to music
her hips draw shapes that are ashamed of daylight
her hot-cinnamon voice flies like the crow does
to find the shortcut to the raw heart
to the secret poetry of decadence
at night she squats over a chamber-pot
a stone idol in the full moon
that pales in the light of her ample backside
her hands know the road maps of the skin
she is beyond gender, whole as water
she is

LitNet: 08 August 2006

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