...........
...........
........O it thumps and reverberates
.............past my window like a loose end
............a string to mend the broken pane
.....................of white escape
..........its complexities
.........block out the sun
...........and anything that is cantic
................with the presence
.....................of red
-------------------------------
at the carnival we contemplate
dying our hands the color of Chay root
and cicatrix
........[I do not think
I'll make it home to test their origins]
our candied mouths make their first appearances
........................................as virgins
...who do not taste anything sticky
until told
---------------------------------
in vernal days I see myself as a canary
or mother's sickly valerian shoots
I will ask
how they bend to look like dying pricks
and she will wave and tap her foot like she's performing
....................her first zapateo
.....................shake her string-thin finger
.......as she sends me to my room to glare at the window
--------------------------------
(Melancholia's Tremulous Dreadlocks, 2006)