Murder Me Again With Your Voice
Let all those boyfriends you stole like corpses
from a graveyard, believing you were the artistic genius
who was mistress of their vital organs, rise from the dead
as if they'd finally learned to stand up to you
and making a move on your surgical flesh
say, hey, now, mistress, come lie down with us
and see, for yourself, what a heady lover death can be
when you don't take your cliches so seriously
you've rewired your waterlilies to the stars
until they all sting like superclusters of jellyfish
tasing you with the acid rain of your own tears
like rootfires of desire blossoming underground
without a flower to speak of or break through anywhere
you could point to and say, there, I grew that out of love
as if I weren't even trying all that hard
to stand here alone, alive, and beautiful as I am
not as an alibi for dying, but as an act of life
as indelible in its absence it is when it's here.