Category: Crimson Writ

Where my words give lie to the wolf under the skin.

knock.

Knowing the state of the roads, you’re surprised that anyone is out today and you approach the door with curiosity.

Door opened, just a bit, and the man standing in the gray world outside offers a small, but real, smile.

You know who it is. But you wait.

“He could hear you.” he says.

“Who?” you ask.

“The wolf.” He steps up to the door and you are opening it without thought, too startled to think of a reply. In fact, in the time it takes for you to bring your thoughts back together, the door is closed behind him and his fingers are under chin, lifting your eyes to his and exposing your throat.

His next words are spoken against the slender heat along the pulse in your neck, his lips so close they taste the warmth and breathe it back out as words. “He heard your heartbeat. ” He nips your throat, “Here.” and then his hand rests lightly on your hip only and to trail down to your thighs, “and here.”

And then there is no room for words, or thoughts, or anything but his fingers finding ways to open you, to expose your skin. Jeans undone, shirt drawn up, it takes minutes, seconds, too fast, too right, and his lips are on your skin, really on your skin, and he doesn’t have to speak the words for you to feel his hunger. He slides to one knee, hooking your leg over his shoulder, and he draws your panties aside, his head tilted up to draw you in, to drink you, his tongue finding your clit, a pearl between his lips, and he teases until your fingers find his hair to grip.

He stops.

But only to stand, to turn you around, bracing your hands against the wall, two fingers buried expertly between your thighs, his free hand on your hip, firmly tilting you to let his fingers drive in deeper. But it’s not enough, the wolf demands more and his fingers are replaced with something that throbs to his own heartbeat; you are impaled, driven closer to the wall, and this is just a start, a single thrust that becomes two, three, six and then there are no numbers, just skin and the moment you both find release.

Finally, you breathe.

ladle and petal

I left the sonnets in the cupboard
haikus behind the door
pressed flowers like Alfred Prufrock
and left them on the floor

they said:

you are woven gossamer
silk threads in violent dance
I stole for you the moments
I could not leave to chance

in the downfall of a kiss
a diction soonest made
that all the king’s horses
could not have sweeter laid

but you, you dream inspired
unrequited and unresolved
and in the shadow of your thirst
my self in answer called.

just patient enough

it is fitting
 that you be here
  now.

that the way you hold yourself
  is in length with the way I remember you
   kneeling, beside my desk

and how you shiver
  is how I hold you
    in my mind

it is fitting
  that you still fit
    so perfectly

wishing well

Imagine a well: a place filled with clever ideas and flagellant wit; a witch’s brew cultivated by time spent under covers and the company of self.

We cultivate mystery; a dark cupful of it. And we pour it out with friends, splash it on new acquaintances (those lucky few we keep around), tip it over on strangers. We go forth, anointing the innocent and the wicked alike, saints of surrender.

Yet what happens when we are too busy to refill the well? When we are found, caught, and held too long in the sun? It is subtle – responsibilities, true love, bosom buddies, beautiful art – they take up our time, and they teach us, and entertain us. And oh! how they keep us busy, filling us with laughter, and a sweet joy. It is like sunshine on wooden stairs.

—

Sometimes I miss the shadowed place under the stairs, the place where the well is replenished. Where good books are kept, and tattered red cloth, and secrets.

(and the occasional wolf)

the language of hunger

It’s implied, the violence that threatens to spill beyond the boundary of my control. Fingers curling to fist before relaxing.

Hunger is the voice of need. It speaks to absence, but is not absent.

It is a knot, a dull ache in search of sustenance; it is an edged invitation, a sharp pang in search of prey.

I learn the language of hunger through abstinence. I resolve, make practice of restraint.

Leashed is too coy a word.

It is so easy to romanticize a state of human deprivation: we fast for purity, an expunging in search of clarity. But there is a wildness to this state and it calls to mind bestial devouring.

arms wide, eyes shut

“Why is it so fleeting?” she asked from the edge.

I shrugged, but her back was to me, so I said, “We’re not meant to be trapped in happiness.” Head resting against rough bark, I closed my left eye, watching her through the right.

Her bare toes curled into the sand of the cliff, dipping under gnarled fingers of roots. “Trapped? What a sinister way to describe happiness.” She looked over her bare shoulder, “Pain isn’t fleeting. Are we meant to be trapped in pain?”

I switched eyes. The left eye caught the shimmer of the ocean past her silhouette. “Sharp pain is fleeting. It’s the dull pain that sticks around, and we endure. We’re adaptable creatures, us humans.” I plucked at the green poking through the grains of sand, now watching her with both eyes open.

“Well.” She pirouetted. “I think I am going to fall.” then, “I’m scared. I know the fall will be exhilarating, but eventually I’m going to reach bottom.” Hands thrown out, hair caught by the ocean breeze, she added, “And that’s going to hurt.”

I stood, pushing off from the tree, “Of course it’ll hurt.”

A grin, a step back, arms wavering for balance, and her words, “You won’t stop me?”

“You never stopped me.” Over her shoulder, I could see the ocean, “Besides, it’s not the possible pain that makes the fall so frightening.” I smiled and met her eyes as she leaned into the breeze, “It’s not knowing how far you have to go.”

winter’s habitat

Time with her was like wrestling a polar bear.

The polar bear! The slightly-confused ursine cousin, the snow-kissed emblem of the unintentionally cute, the sharp-tooth predator quite capable of making a meal of lesser mammals.

I?

I am miracle fruit. Freeze-dried ice cream. An hibiscus amid champagne.

I am the tracks in the snow.

brushed

a fox ran for the hill
red-tailed, I followed
only to lose
her, at the edge of the wood.

she was too small and I
too much of a thing not meant
for small spaces.

so I let her go