Flowering

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It was my older Sister

who inspired me

To say, fuck it

I’ll not wear a bra

Today. My mother never

Could have, for I

Was afraid

Of the way hers sway

My Great Aunts

Let their mouths stretch

As they laugh

About how lewdness is their

Art. Shaking their heads

Like cudded cows

With nothing better to do

Than fart.

But my Grandma

With her wiggle on the dance floor

A kid from

A street called

Rough. She was

The one who

Stirred me up

To really strut my stuff.

Riots in Reflection

Is our custodian of calm,

Time?

So elastic and plastic and thin.

Or is it purely a technique for keeping track

When we want something looking back?

Perhaps she’s a gentle nurse,

Tucking souvenir tickets into our pockets.

Tender times spent waiting with children,

Unwilling to urge them into any rat race

Or when I pulled you from beneath a truncheon

moments before it split open your girlish face

The day you wanted something from me but I gave you only words

Wasn’t it you who said it is time we grew up? With

Time a lighthouse blaring warnings of imminent rocky ruin.

Tumbling through hourglass figures to settle on the underside of our hips.

Scorching moist elastin into a salty dry skin that cannot be rubbed young.

Time never stretching languid again

nor preening in the heat wave of unlimited opportunity.

She’s truncating, cooling and separating,

Breaking us like flotsam floating away still.

My nemesis moving fast forward

Intent on her kill.