For Billie Whose Insides are Quite Intricate


interior light on, 9:30 p.m.
head bent precisely you scrounge
my console for your turkish gold.

in the presence of dim light we agree
it is so hard to find anything anymore.
but we have found this & the clink of our
brown bottles salutes never ending devotion.

you have driven so far in the name of sisterhood
with fire in your hair, wetness in your eyes
32 words shoved underneath your pant suit.

in the beginning we were flannel & seven day old
pants. patchwork hats, crow feathers & love.
now we are black lace & pantsuits, wonder bras & slacks
& the quiet sweet sound of reckoning inbetween
atm withdrawals & your laugh.

here, in the middle of this midnight hazard
you tell me you have never been a poem before.
have never been dressed in india ink quite so delicately. that

24 years ago you were tied in knots. now you are tied
in lumps, worrying that your femininity might be diseased.
that your chest is full of pinholes & there will be
no best method to cover up the light.

if anything, i have come to tell you this:
you have always been a poem.
atmospheric in your intensity since the first, most fragile breath,
you are fettucine & late nights, black-inked in the hollow spaces
butterflies & no sleep, winged
hazelnut & absolute faith.

you are 24 variations of  cornflower, slipping into periwinkle
moving into heather. constantly changing hues & now, i tell you:

it is time to recollect our selves
bundle us up in green chiffon
wrap ribbon around
our edges

because we were girls
who loved boys
who never loved us back

because 7 years ago we told secrets in bed in panties,
built towers in tribute to purple camaros & sisterhood,
left mud-trails, collected stories. said no one could
trample our spirits.

because 7 years ago
we believed it.
lived it.
exploded into one million tiny miracles &
fled.

because now, 52 minutes before the show,
i am 17 again, waist-high in water
memorizing the way three dead leaves float
down red river in august

while you tell me about the boy
who ripped your insides &
the sun, she dies, a quiet
tiny death.

because now, two thousand four hundred ninety-two
days late, i want to tell you

you are beautiful
in the most absolute
of ways.