Sepia seraphim steps with feet
that never were hers
and speaks in tongues
with mouthes that are dripping repentence
through puddles of mud in the cracks
of the sidewalk.

A poised kind of lightness is there.
Each step
a freedom granted
gained and earned
a right to breathe thin air
and taste new lips--
a kind of emboldened resistance
she never had formerly thought to possess.

The dirt slides down her milky calves.
She looks in your eyes before throwing her face into sky
and filling the thunders with laughter.


Have they noticed the gold flecked irises yet?

Are they caught on the hangnails beneath her black gloves?

Does the world detect that meticulous joy

which only decants with her most particular

gleaming

grin?


There are songs and chords and dischords there.
There are eons of faults and misshapen fates awaiting-
mistakes that haven't been made
and buses you'll have to run after,
your laces untied
her face in your hands.

And you'll kiss her one day.
You will and you'll know
you have found her beneath all the wreckage.
You've trashed all her perfects
made love to her faults
and filled up your breath
with the scent of her.

Creamy strands of her silk
will remain on your fingers.
Love will give way to a beating,
a breathing luminescence
and colours will melt into caramel gold
(the shimmers of which you can lap
from her popsicle toes).

10/10/2005

Posted on 10/11/2005
Copyright © 2024 Trisha De Gracia