Gag the nightingale
Bruise the rose
Tear petals away
Wherever flowers grow.
Last night in a dream
I slept with my mother,
Then he woke me
The stranger
My ten-dollar lover.
A slash of the moon
Lay between us
Like a cool silver river,
And soon we were adrift
In pools so far away
I saw over his shoulder
My mother could no longer
Tread the flow.
Published in the 1997-09-12 issue: View Contents