In a bowl of seize yeux
Trinity Chapa

I encounter
a militia of cynics
who hate
my song.
They grin against me--
men who do not know
belonging to these nights.

Blow my word
through dear time. Music flies
constant.
constant. I sing
to forget my name. I write
to prove my “self” wrong.

In a spring of sorrow ducked
a halting chord. Who will
    bend
        my body
back?

Music abandoned me, though
I sang. What exists
beside us begs only our patience.
I start again.

Creation was
and then wasn’t.
Disaster is the collision
of two awe-full bodies. Breaking
bones, bruises.

My body speaks of you.
Joy comes from a brief lapse
in the machine. And still,
it stuttered.

My mother cried.
Mother senses
I’ll say goodbye.
    goodbye.

Seize what’s worse--
pliance of a ribbon or
rigidity of a cock?
What moves through me
is grace.

Ruby-cheeked fools--
be my guides.
Let me be unafraid
of the idiocy
of truth. Mother--
I have only this song,
some string,
feathers

but you have
to trust my stomach
its soft-ness.