“To pursue beauty to its lair.” — Arundhati Roy
She folds her hands together
as if in prayer
onlookers believe
the end of the world is near
Bitter West Coast coffee
dream memories decayed
masculine sensitivities
you think: her POV lacks pleasure
Or maybe this cumulative longing
binds her sense of class to economics
she is an experienced voyeur
an orgy of grace
Disciplined dangerous
her body expresses need
she commits to infinite integration
in entry & in sanctuary
maybe I do want you to feel intimidated by me
I want a revolution as reckless as cowboys with broken backs.
Throwing restraint to the western winds, a favorable direction,
& towards that edge where darkness is shaped into possibility,
I wait familiar in shy quiet impatient.
I want a revolution as prolific as chants for collective safety.
Born from burn scars so large you can see it from a distant
universe, a reminder we will never be in control so long as
money motivates our hustle for pretentious liberation.
I want a revolution as tender as loving in present tense.
An immediacy that respects our inherited kinetic energies.
Until then, I’ll gather productive & discover curious tensions
sensual as thunder replying to lightening’s transfiguring danger.
In protest and in wealth, I want a revolution that gives as much as it takes.
as perennial pipelines heat prairie homes
I dream of drifting oceans & waves of snow
effluence affluence
I have been told so many times & so many ways
this world is ending
omen amen
so I’ve taken to stealing lines on borrowed time
censor center
somewhere in this self-immolation is discipline
the denomination of need
