I have become as celibate as a god

entranced like dreams,

the flow of my creation

(like the flow of my blood)

coursing through the hallows of my veins,

a newly christened woman with naked

tree branches growing from her breasts

and mind.

I don't have my hours to give to you anymore.

I close my eyes

and dream

while the sky

bursts with white - a light rain -

a layer of water wiped across my skin

even though I'm safe within

the blankets

and when I wake up my body feels heavy,

too heavy

to belong to me.

I came home today

to a wall of photographs (fallen)

a river of cheap black frames

floating atop my mattress

as though to escape the waterfall of walls.

Surely, an omen

of something (else) bad.

Surely, a connection

to the under turned faces

shaping like shadows in my minds eye;

the people I don't see anymore,

and the people

who

don't

want

to

see

me.

I walked to my car a few hours ago, the low hum

of hard-soled shoes clicking when I heard

an: "Excuse me" from behind, and

when I turned a boy, so tall that he could have been a giant

but younger (I could tell by the eyes) stood before me,

"I don't want to offend you

but do you

have any money so I can get some food"

his cheeks were flushed, and his voice was small like a child's.

I lowered my purse

and gave him all the change I had, just a couple of ones,

I'm sorry, I told him, but that's all I've got.

I watched an old man sit at a table alone

chewing slowly from a plate of bacon and eggs

watching the windows - and chewing -

and looking around for something

unnoticeable to focus on,

the lines of his face etched like candlesticks.

How loneliness becomes a shape

tipping the scales of one's devotion;

a heavy weight; a name brand of hunger,

and shoes, and left over change.

I have a nervous reaction to my present circumstances,

all dressed up

and now where to go,

the type of feeling that you

hibernate in;

become so tight that you're like an oyster shell

thrust the edges down

and curl up

until a pearl forms

somewhere between my bellybutton and heart -

something

to wrap

my fingers around.