Karma Sutra

Shiva's consort takes me shopping to Bloomingdale's
and the top two floors of Macy's and finally
at the shoes she lets her mask slip a little
and I realize this Hindu goddess has the face of my mother.
Even now as she rummages through her purse
for an extra Zoloft pill, her face is rapidly changing.
In ancient times they called her Parvati or Kali depending
on her mood. Now she's called Cindy or Cynthia depending
on how quickly the medicine has opiated her nerves.
In the dressing room, I am blasphemous
calling her my own names.
She peers her black head over the door to watch me
struggle my way into sanded denim jeans.
I'll see if they have a bigger size
she says, sprouting two extra arms,
and later returns covered in piles
of corduroy pants, sweaters, and shirts,
like a sacred coat rack.

In the three way mirror I examine myself
from all sides. Pink skin, long wavy hair,
average number of limbs. Right outside, I hear the holy one
yelling at a sales attendant. Soon she'll be slicing
off his head, tying it to her belt of skulls. She'll be
covered in blood, tongue lolling out of mouth.
This woman, my mother, goddess from whom all are
born and into whom all must return, I see myself at her age
grabbing my own daughter by the wrist, leading her from store
to store. She looks at me with eyes as deep as solar systems.
She wants me to swallow up the whole store into my mouth
when her pants don't fit but I won't.

I grab her hand and whisper,
Some of us spring forth from the brow of time
and some of us sprout slowly from the ground
that lies cracked and fertile under heaven's foot.
I have been transformed
as you will be transformed
by the love of a two headed mother
creator and destroyer
pill in my hand.

The Women of Troy

In those days we wore our hair straight as laser beams,
the four of us girls, sharing one room, one sink,
one flat iron. It was the Helen of Troy gold plated model
we bought for sixty dollars at the local Sally Beauty Supply,
quite an investment for college girls
who spent most of their extra cash on beer
but we figured it would get us laid faster than the booze.

We'd take turns at the mirror. Hours spent splitting
our natural waves into banana clipped sections,
steaming our locks into smooth layers. I remember
the ache of my arms as I held that straightener to
my head and counted seconds twenty eight, twenty nine, thirty.
The grit of my teeth as I clamped it onto a new piece of hair.
The smell of my smaller self burning away.

We emerged from our room every evening, a squadron
of soldiers seeking conquest after conquest. We couldn't lose
with Helen on our side. We were amazons, we were warriors,
we were slick as knives.

And when one of us would burn a finger
or a forehead, we called the wounds battle scars
and when our hair started to dry out and die off
we blamed the weather and never the heat against our manes.
We thought only of ourselves, our own passions and desires.
We became women in that tiny room,
women forged from heat and branded by hot iron.

Ms. Cass

Mama you were so big you could fit
the whole sun inside you
and when you opened that mouth
light poured out in bright bursts
of liquid sound. Mama you filled a room,
filled it so full that everyone else orbited
around you like misshapen planets.
They said you were too hard to look at,
covered you up, used your energy to fuel
an entire civilization. Right now I am listening
to your milky way voice on the radio and stars are shining
bright above me, elevating me to your height.
Down on earth everyone is getting fat,
except for you. They are getting fat off of you.
Mama they cleaned your plate. But we don't mind.
Here in this great wide black abyss we can be whatever
dreams tell us to be. We can be astronauts. We can be free.


Open Heart Confessions

The poet has a heart attack in church.
Hurry bring the pen, bring the poem.
We're performing surgery on this altar.
Here is the priest, his hands are in the sky.
Here is the doctor, he is cracking her ribs,
they turn to dust. But the heart, the heart
is fat and will not fall to soot and ash.
The doctor pinches a piece and sees
her arteries clogged with words, images,
metaphors, the priest probes around for soul,
but she is without that mystical plasma. Look,
ink runs though her veins. There will be
no transfusion. No spiritual transformation.
They are ready to let her die. But the heart,
the heart wants to speak.