What the Muses Leave Behind

for Rochelle Start with story – thirty-eight + two  Hung before the rising sun Be precise. Learn every breath of it, tell it one hundred times. Hold the trauma of four, five generations,  Let it build gravity in your belly. Daily   Pray to your ancestors,  Thank them for the legacy that is you. Grow indifferent to racism and unkindness. Dance. Sing. Dance. Sing. Dance. Sing. Dance. Pray with your feet to find Inspiration for the dress:         how it comes together        how the body holds it  The healing that lives among the threads. Here is a story that needs a horse to ride. The dress is the horse; the dancer, the rider. Be patient for the dream that brings the dress to you. Remember what your grandfather said. Ride at dawn, ride at twilight.  Ride at dawn, ride at twilight.  Now gather two black Pendleton blankets – ...

   “We all have interiors that want to be seen.” Fibber McGee’s Closet, you don’t want to open it too fast.  My interior is not a Fibber McGee Closet…go ahead, take your time. Peek in slowly, I miss details about my life at first glance too.  You can get lost in there, I get lost in here.  Pockets, reticulations, like a fox makes, retracing her steps so that none can follow.  Sorry grandchildren, my path might seem to lead you down a blind alley, just keep going. I’ve always loved walking in the dark, feeling my way.  My interior self sorted instead of stacked.  Think of a wall of conglomerate strata, neatly tucked into place. Think of lots of shelves, bottle lined, blue, green, brown glassed. Of secret rooms, burrows and warrens, fur lined and wormy. Think of revolving doors, a little sticky but with a push you are in. Of  labyrinths on islands for the really sordid moments, the ones that you truly want ...

This city has seven rings, bad air and a piece of my jewelry. That earring of lapis and quartz, now closer to home Than ever it was in Appalachia. Here's a city that wheels the roads like fish schools with frightening appetite. Platters of Peking Duck warn me as I devour its crispy delicious skin. It’s a city of red doors, masked faces and a piece of my incisor. Now this tongue, worried and raw, craves sweet longan fruit and milk tea. I am another door, chipped but open. This city demands guts for steaming hot pots and morning courage. My slumber has climbed aboard Coriolus currents, I wake more dream than dreamer, more breath than blood. This city expects backbone, an open wallet, and a warm coat. Turtle dragons embody the emperor. All lean into their work. Harmony, the hardest task master, reigns from the inside out. Here is a city with three feet, its silent anarchy in black leather boots. A young foot reaches for tomorrow, the old one gathe...

I’ve grown indifferent even bound in breath crouched on one leg. Here beneath me so many sturdy shoulders. Steady on (I think) find the balance in the wobble of an apical tip and never neglect the view from here.

Turbid The river is turbid today this moment feels the same Tomorrow’s forecast murky and overhead a ropy underbelly of cloud pinkens with our f bombs wears them as honor badge. One hundred percent Ever notice how rivers cut to the chase? We say inundate but it’s really a full body press. Our angry rumblings an envious companion. Envy, imitation, the highest form of flattery, I hear. I watch us roil to a slow boil. Clearing channels for “hell hath no fury” to break loose! We congregate in divine tempest. Been building for ages, like Katrina and Rita Irma and Sandy Florence Storm surge and flooding the mighty debridement And holy is the rancor that ochers the water. The rivers are ready. The oceans have held worse, have carried more. One hundred percent. Castaways bereft make new lives  if they don’t drown in the trauma and the abuse and the shame. Survivors as persons who continue to function even prosper in...