these little trials and mis
fortunes mixed all in a bla
ze the aching hollows the
full drunk daze and you
no longer here
in the dream the Women had to pay
for their toilet use
and if too poor
they crawled beneath stall doors
but it wasn’t like this Everywhere
it was like this only off the Main Entrance
only off the Elementary Halls
and if a Woman found herself alone
wandering
somewhat amazed
by her forced complicity to sacrifice
if a Woman felt herself trapped
if the air smelled strange
if it had become the air of Predator and Prey
as the Dream turned Nightmare in the Dream
She could opt to enter—for safety’s sake—the Room
where the Red Sign read:
In case of rape
Women may hide
in the Men’s Room
Free
these little fevers
write themselves
through burning eyes
are blisters on the pen
past incubation
waiting
in blank horizons
mouthing
emptiness
where once were words
as signs
what hour
of thought
left to calm
becomes
now god
now sword
now flights
in fancy
that only
certain angels
win
slow
that moon whose rise begins
as thinnest hint of what will shine
or glow or glowingly only hint
the slightest airing of the slow-born show—
take it then
as suns take shadows
first by setting
then by easing into unseen lows—
take that draft into your arms
get drunk
start over
put a sweater on—
by heavens and convictions
that beginning is a taken slow
a turn
a twist
a slightest airing out
against crazed Night
by page and ink
that hint of Madmen's glow
blues exam 3
ask
what you want
of a thousand shadows
and they will show
the darkness is
yet hasn't come
