Three Black Sonnets                  

All that’s left is to be the one who lay down
who is staying, far, there is time left
to not be the one who was, and not be this
for I to be the who lashes, bleed, I thought

if he said dead, he said , he wanted
to keep me like in this fist his silence
we were two, and god, a black lament
to close or not the door of that day

two children, I thought myself to be the ferocious one
and I was simply the other, who was lashed
and I am, it hurt me to injure my voice

there is nothing left of having stayed, or having been two
my fingers and my feet have been covered with sores
by gods, I saw the face of the god

***
and how I flee the gesture, the turn, the wing
and the air so chilled, sweet cut
fearing his shadow, and yet
trembling from the fever of being brave

a fenced garden, thorns, the palace
the young girl and her head of hair, and the silence
imposed by the others, the sinister
radiance of cosmetics and the diving helmet

having sunk my head in
longer than the others, by the alien
blood, and it matters not if it’s shed

by death over the rocks, by the river
it doesn’t matter, poor girl, ;the princess
truly lying on the ivy

***
the loan of blood is worthless that way—that way
the sun of corals blazed hard
a hurried shield, but a shield
at battle’s end , and being imprecise

the rumbling sound of brave blood subject to questioning
opposing flesh, a true
fashioning of its black glass splinter, imprecisions
the bounce of spitting yes, oh yes,

I will do what you say, and I will also
do what I want in the corners
of the slanting, the dark slanting of the gods

who dictate what shall be done, but they haven’t said
that you should avoid me a blank space
make myself believe that I don’t hear the voices any longer