She Makes Me Tea

She asks me
Would you like some tea?
As I read,
Lounging,
The expanse of
Microfiber couch
Between us
Shrinking
Her voice
Tender,
She doesn’t drink
Tea
Or vodka,
Her consideration
So difficult to believe
How do I accept
Unconditional love?

She rises,
Traverses a menagerie
Boils water
Scoops dried leaves
Into my favourite
French kitten cup
(The one for tea,
She knows coffee
Goes in the green
Starbucks mug)
Steeps,
Long enough
And places beside me
Smiling,
“Drink it,
Before it gets cold,”

My heart quickens,
Remembering her soft lips
Heart bursting
Three years
I still don’t quite
Believe
Are real,

But she is action,
And her everyday kindness
Is its own indelible
Poetry
Etched forever
Into the hollows
The dents and cracks,
Of our mutual
Crazy
Love story.

1SageFemme All Rights Reserved 2017

Unrequited

they hiked to a secret place,
if you can call a forest pool
known to all the kids in town
“secret,”

in the fleeting heat of summer
the still, deep pool appeared
unexpectedly
amid rapids and gnarling
forest branches
creatively dubbed
“hot rocks”
for obvious reasons
some generations before

it was a lazy summer sport,
hiking with beer
throwing down wet bodies
onto hot rocks
or each other
jumping into the frigid water,
laughter and screams through the quiet rainforest

until Jesse jumped
diabetic Jesse who was drunk
like the rest of them
and his mortal, adolescent heart
just stopped
searing this memory
ever after
of CPR and sweat
and the twins screaming
Jesse Jesse Jesse

there were no cell phones then
only miles to run hauling
ghost Jesse
to the beat-up pickup
and then the loss
of time

fast forward to
Sophie dressed in black
without crying,
reading poetry
for Jesse
her first love
not knowing how my heart broke
for her,
my own first love,
how I had always wished
to be Jesse

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frozen

today my chest tightens
meditation fails
anticipation like ice
creaks into blood and bones,
a meeting;
my gifted child
at five
contemplates the face
of god
at eight it’s punnett squares
for bedtime chatter,
so today, today
i will sit across from her,
the one who left,
the charismatic liar
the drinker
who stole more
than money
and discuss this child
and she will smile,
call me by an old, old
lover’s name
and pretend
like always,
to be human

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You

I wake from easy dreams
Mind slowly coalescing into the memory of
You
Stunning and funny
You
Sweet and charming
You
Smart and fragile
You
My heart
Bursting open so unexpectedly
With hope and fear
Pulse throbbing longing
Through my veins
Wishing
You
To be a real thing
You
To be what you seem
You
To be more than a dream

1Sagefemme All Rights Reserved 2017

in the long shadow of dawn

my heart
skips and flutters
pebbles across turbulent waves
then sinks
deep deep
landing in a hot pit
of
not exactly despair
but
foreboding,
heightened senses scanning,
nostrils twitching,
scenting predators,
legs
don’t fail me now
I am fight
I am flight
wishing for wings
to spread across the landscape
to shield my own
to fly us into the horizon
but escape is a fairy tale
I tell my children
as we crouch in the shadows
watching wolves
devour
decency

1SageFemme All Rights Reserved 2016

Not so simple

I drew a border
line around her
a boundary first in sand
then soil
and finally granite
boundaries blocking all
routes
back
of necessity,
I confined her
in black and white
caricature,
flat borders
lined in pen
yet
my heart aches
to create a troupe l’oeil
even if depth
is only
illusion…
she was always a lie,
my borderline
wife.

1SageFemme All Rights Reserved 2016

Her

The lake smells ripe today
Sweet and rotting
Dead and reborn in this heat,
Gulls crying for scraps
White fluff like summer snow
Swirling
Dancing with eddies of sand
Sailboats, kite surfers
Awaiting the breeze
Laughter through the trees
Remind me of her

1Sagefemme All Rights Reserved 2016

right there

damn, you unbuckle me
when you touch
that way
soft fingers searching
lips
tracing invisible constellations
connecting stars
i see them
as time
slows
meandering,
made inconsequential by celestial
bodies
suspended,
drifting,
only your hands
your mouth
your eyes
exist,
my skin feels you whisper
wordless incantations
i
reply
panting
raw staccato
your hands no longer soft
press and knead,
deep into my dark core
unafraid
you explore
find that spot,
right there, yes
you unleash me
love
how you free me
did i exist
before this?
your tongue knows
my rain dance
you,
never tire
drive hard
into my longing
you vibrate
you glow,
i swear there’s a halo
before i explode,
melt
into you…

1Sagefemme All Rights Reserved 2016

Orlando

 

Orlando

mother, you told me
your church wouldn’t welcome me
sentiment shooting from
pale pink lips
over the scrape of knives and forks
my children watching
as I inhaled your casual violence
lest it escape into the world
to join a cacophony of hatred
love the sinner
hate the sin;

hate

am i a sinner?
raising two tender boys,
waking at four a.m.
to race to the hospital,
or a family’s home,
where new life bursts into these
queer hands
where i hold your
christian muslim jewish
babies
in most precious regard,
sometimes wrestling them from
otherworldly hands

my love is sin
that is the lesson
that you will not teach my children
and they will be my response,
mother

do you not see that your alter
is rotten,
that disdain disguised as love
eventually,
inevitably,
leads to violence
born of hate

you made Omar Mateen
when those words left your lips
on the wings of moths
to join the hurricane

“you would not be welcome there,
anyway…”

we,
queer people
always fighting to be worthy of love…
we all died a little
that sunday morning
in june
because we know

know

that you hate us

but we have always existed,
despite you,
and we’ll go on creating
a whole new world
out of the ashes

1sagefemme All Rights Reserved 2016

Queer flirtation

aged 25:
I was in a bar restroom, and when I exited the stall a (very) masculine woman was facing me, casually leaning on the counter looking intense and completely sober. Taken aback, I chose the most logical course of action; I went to wash my hands, just as though there wasn’t a sexy-as-hell dyke planted between the sinks. There was a roll of that cheap industrial paper towel on the counter, and, face burning, I reached for it as she turned ever so slightly and knocked it to the floor. After a nanosecond too-long pause, I bent down to pick it up, but somehow she beat me there, and handed the roll to me as I stood back up, staring into my eyes the whole time. I don’t actually know how she did it, because my mind went completely blank. My legs turned to jello, which up until that exact moment I had thought was just a figure of speech. Without saying a word, she gave me the slightest self-satisfied smile, turned on her heal, and strode away. Bathroom Butch, wherever you may be, I thank you!

1Sagefemme   all rights reserved 2016