The Lament of Paravenia

I strip down to the flesh,
tarnished milky white by winter's oily hands.
Only seasons ago I was bronze.

My linens lax by the basin
with the fidelity of a dead dog,
shrouded in soot and ash.
At first, the faucet sputters, though
the room soon floods with steam
at the basin's christening.
I shiver, and contemplate washing away the past.

The tap freshly pulled, water cascades
from a cupped palm above.
My appendages limp, and my complexion
rosed like steel in a furnace.
An intrusive thumping of a dove beating
against the fogged window
agonizes my heartbeat with counter-rhythms.
The single pane cracks in fragile frigid air.
The shower shuts off. I dry, descend the stairs
with nothing clean to clothe myself in.
The bitter tiles swindle the warmth from my sole.
I woodlessly try to stoke the stove

as flat black as my skin is cream,
but weathered dreams misplace my ruddiness.
I shined only seasons before—

before desires came gnawing through walls,
shredding insulation for their nests
discreetly just out of reach.
They bring the frost in with them,
and I cannot get the fire lit.
Their reminiscent tracks mock my eyes
that have never seen their fruition.

Yet through their opening
the dove gets in, bruised on foot,
with blooded wings, and betwixt his beak a twig.

Said the Flower to the Bee,

I’d’ve not crimsoned
were you in truth: pollen thief,
lulled by your sweet hum.

Autumn Shadows

Here
is where I sit,
long before this great red oak tree.
This great scarlet oak -
poised with health, a sturdy spine.
Its leaves green. No, yellow.
No. Red.
Stop.

Its branches erect,
each longing its fleeting bird.
Its bark like the grooves of my mouth
absent of her tongue.
Its roots dive deep
- six feet deep -
breaking the birch boundries
of my lover's grave.
It sucks and slurps
her decomposition. nutrients.
Now she is fertile. Only to him.

Through his roots, up his trunk,
spewing through his branches
into his leaves.
His envious leaves.
No, yellow.
No. Red.
Brown.

In a waste, his demeaning leaves
spat to my face.
Shotgun. Scatter. to the ground.
Where they lie's where I shall die
in the cast of his scarlet shadow's sound.

Here where I sat long before
his roots took place, waiting
for my love to break down.