A dragonfly collides with the glass door
to the pool, his wings strum the strands
of my hair like a cello. I am lilting
like a coal cooling under breeze, spurting
sparks into the song-strung air like seeds.
When I am this unapologetically beautiful
I sometimes grow sullen, aware
of my awareness of slope and tint and
skin that makes no difference at all
when I only want to be the perfect idea
of myself. Last night I told the man I love
that one day soon I would begin to fly;
with eyes full open like peeled plums,
with arms cavalierly limp from the sockets,
wind would fill my marrow with the truth
that I am perfect and I believe myself
enough to lift into the cistern of the sky.

So, I aimed to arrive at Midway at 5:45am for my 7am flight, but hit the snooze on the cell phone one too many times. What made me think that 6am traffic would somehow be lighter? At 6:57am I was still barefoot in the security line, almost on the verge of tears when the gruff TSA lady said she would need to run my purse through the x-ray a SECOND time, and then search it by hand for “additional screening.” I got on my 7am flight at 7:09, but alas, I got on the plane. Amen. I’ve already run into a number of poets from across the country making their annual pilgrimage to the National Poetry Slam. My connecting flight to West Palm Beach is about to start boarding. May this begin another life-changing week in the magical life of an artist.

I wanted breath to syrup prayers on the reed, we
thatched ourselves under sound and white ceilings
humming bones black vibrato till resistance splintered.
This is devotion. There is a bible on the bookshelf.
A wooden rosary splattered over white leather, my skin
grips my clothes ferocious, derelict flesh braising
in sweat. We sit on wilting suitcases in sandstorms,
we fan ourselves with the brown envelope fat
with decades of check stubs, we splash
in the palace pool behind pharaoh’s alabaster, he
paints my breasts with india ink and I giggle.
Seven candles dribble wax some where not
here and my shoulders are cherrywood balustrade
he carves cherubs, rats pluck symphonies
on the street grates below, and his voice muscles
the writhing air. We row through treble and ground
onyx for wet facials. He feeds me saffron. Strangles
me with hot guitar strings and I purr into feathers.
This is commitment. Veins crackle with shards of sacred
promise. There is applause. There is a promise kept.

I imagine he cooks with cayenne
that he measures in his hands
that the fine grains pepper his lifeline
a sunset brown when he drops it into the pot
proper, I imagine he dries wine glasses
with a soft cloth after dishes are washed
that he leaves the bathroom with towel tied
tight around tattooed hips like an Egyptian
that he tracks footprint puddles to the bedroom
where he finds her in mirrors jeweling her ears
that he dips his finger in lavender oil and strokes
them through her hair, that he writes poems for her
on bar napkins and margins of novels and sand
bars where tides will erase them. I figure him
mystic and barefoot around bonfires and steel drums
singing of blacks who tallied banana harvests and dragged
home to thatched roofs, in rain and just a cotton shirt
that becomes his skin.