I think the words were “thrilling” and “beautiful”—
which, come to think of it, are not even such impressive gifts:
you cannot preen your beaver-fur with oils squeezed from “beautiful,”
and thrilling, leather-padded, is not so soft or warm to touch.

Maybe what stung more was that beacon light “epistle”
flashing, nude and stark, against the hurried, half-chewed sky.
“Epistle” maps a constellation, sends a star by huntress bow,
and like a Cepheid, you pulse together:
a brilliant standard candle.

So while you glide, metatarsals touching
and swirl the clouds with ash and sky,
I will scrunch up, an inchworm arclet,
and chew on a stalk of corn.
I will burrow in and out of the ground,
feel prickled roots on prickled skin
and come up with language all over my hands,
words slipping off my lips.

it was too much today,
that neophyte din,
that spitting of ‘sickness’ from naive, shrewish lips.

their words gnarled and twisted, spider-creeping the room,
rings and things forcing forward,
walls profaned.
glassless picture frames
jeering at me,
scenes of servile sterility–

escape!
my head crushed against the bathroom wall,
the silver ring i couldn’t understand–
and that white whiteness taunting me, goading me to spill myself,
crimson pools dying the tiles– impressionist pain–
white squares incarnadine, white veins releasing–

boiling blood,
screaming fists,
broken door–

and then the yellow again, as before.
living my life under sniper light,
body bulging with toxins
they forced back inside.

i want to fall into myself,
to wrap my arms around me, and build a wall of bones.
i want to shrink my skin,
shrinkwrap my spine,
i want to be texture, ridges, thorns.

my core burns clear, contracting in,
it hones my spikes against the world.
i am sharp edges, protruding lines,
i am hard, and small, and taut.

at night, i run my hands across my skin,
i read my body’s Braille-like maps.
i ravish the spurs, caress the spine
and become my greatest lover.

i don’t need to see— i feel my past,
my history etched in tactile tattoo.
to write myself, i crawl inside and pull:

to read my stories, feel my bones.

Lightning hail, pour through my bones,
Silver blood strike now—
transmute this ash of sleeping eyes
so I, now purged, may grow.

Spider’s limbs; today I wear teardrops, the spilling of sorrow, as I stand, Skeleton Woman, fighting the wind; I am bone-strong and bare, pumpkin-silks pulled from my limbs; my leaves, lost and littered, are gone; only the last folds of taffeta, worn and clinging, strain at my veins; though they twirl, pirouette, this is no ballet— it is a tango, dance of death: my silks unravel before me.

I weep as I dance, for even my late glamour is going; Harvest ballgown shredded, yes, but also late-life diamonds washed away; I have been both May-Queen and Snow-Queen, and I now am washed bare, crystal ice melted, tattered gossamer caught in my arms; my limbs are laid naked, worn by water; I am stripped; I am aged.

My bark is my skin, and the rain beats it clean—see my veins, muddy tan, see my sides flake and peel; I am icicle-tracked, rain-stained with constellations of road maps long lost; I am hennaed by weather: pared down, peeled back, an uneven mosaic— deep-river russet, copper-sorrel, weaving browns.

See my spindles, reaching out, each a memory, each a moment—I have climbed in so many directions, reached into so many worlds; some of my lives are stillborn, infant stalks, broken at joints and caught in my hands; the Wind will soon claim these, my lost children, and carry them away from my arms; I cry in the night, but never can mourn; new directions must grow.

I search through the rain-veil, I reach up, I reach out; the Sun, rising higher, calls my branches; my sinews fan open and upward, and I wait for her, Life-Mother, through the freeze and the rain; I wait for her warmth to soothe windburnt bones, peeling flesh; I wait for her to grant me youth once more; crowned in green, I will dance in her light, birth new limbs, my new daughters, and stand Spring-Goddess once more.

But for now, and today, I must sway in my age; back and forth, back and forth, alone in the grey; I rock, Old Woman, to the lullaby of lives past, and I wait, Sleepy Dreamer, for the Spring to return.

***

Skeleton sleepwalker, I live in the dark; in this time, in night-time, I am covered in black; stripped and skinned, sallow-stalked, I now hate to be seen.

But the glass eyes still find me, open squares yellow and gold; they see me, they show me, stark bare and alone; my skin turns dark murky umber, my veins lost in the dark, but I am still Spider-Creeper; they know I am old.

In deepest nights, I scratch at those windows, fight the light; I show the sleepers my splinters, history written in bone; they cry out, share my nightmare, fear the rasp of the glass, but I push the panes anyway, etch out my pain; I wring my hands, dig my nails, long to touch a new story, but the picture’s unbreakable, I must stay outside; I crack and break, Wind drives me away.

***

Phantom frame: morning dusts me in white; late last evening, lightning flashed the runway of youth, the shutter catch fire, the thunder applause; Wind and Snow, hand in hand, were out to torment me, howling echoes of things long ago passed; sheathed now in white, I awake from my dreams; I am frail, brittle-boned, stripped bare to the core.

My taffeta leaves lie in tatters, faded with wear; when they are brown and dry, they will slip through my spindles; they will fly out and away to some water-filled street, trampled and ground back into the earth; I can only sway, cold and lean, and stand, bare and strong, as I watch my glamour, my children, my memories, move on.