Buddha Woman Speaks and Surrenders, Again

Oh, it is you again
standing here within me,
dancing the darkest moon of my dish
washing, gnawing my hipped belly bowl

promising blood.
You tango through the terror
of my uninhabited dreams, rip
the seams of me where these

clothes don’t fit, haven’t fit
for years of moons at many sinks.
I try not to think about it, but you,
Blood Woman, you needle

to keep me true to who
I think I am, or wanted to be,
but I am always changing, see?
We never agree. You say throw the plates!

I say make them gleam.
I am tired of our existential arguing.
Of cutting myself in pieces for your uses:
Mother, writer, sister, teacher, lover, painter, blue.

You are ruthless, refuse to let me lose these faces.
If only we could multiply our tongue by two!
If only they could flap at once,
in absolute and relative bliss,

Laughing: this/not this! this/not this!
But you won’t have it.
You insist: this, this, this!
I can’t resist. I drop a dish.

2008

featured in Slow Trains, 2008