A few poems

We have names

We have names for the masks
Not for what lies under

We only have words for
things we have words for

Every time I dream of you
I forget a few more


A name is

A name is a blow, wound never recovered from;
Who is so full as to be empty?

To whom is it worthy to empty our identity?
One must love without becoming.

His ego, so fragile! forced to steal her name
Who does she not ask for his?


Her Body

They dressed her up as a bride while
I watched, scratching down notes trying
to appear professional, not interested.

I am told it is done to virgins, though
not how one determines that they are
("She was unmarried," I am told, simple,
as if that were answer enough).

Blood is not removed from martyrs here.
burying them with fashion accessories intact
(my definition brings no smiles)

I want to say the bride should be given red,
bloodied: -- Aren't all virgins martyrs? I half-joke.
I'm told only that wives were left that way, dying
for their sins, loving their straying husbands.

Dying for her sins, I am told, undertaker's voice
flint and ebony. I tread still waters: Aids? as if
death needs helpers. A hand waves to compass
the cool room, this silent world.

"This is the disease." I want to say: The world?
but I just take notes, pen stuttering across the page
a lump in my throat, ice in my soul.