It is summary time
we are summoned to show
what we gained, what we learned
what we chose to embrace
what we want to divorce

It is summary time
last grain in the hourglass
elapsed our moment
to observe, to reflect
to decipher our core

It is summary time
no adjournment is granted
we are called to the dock
to prove we have bettered
to prove we’ve improved

It is summary time
we can storm out of gates
to dance and rejoice
or drool with canine teeth
Damnatio ad bestias*

It is summary time
and the birds and the bees
and the grass and the trees
and the lands and the seas
are listening

Notes: Latin: “condemnation to beasts” as was practised in Rome’s Colosseum

Angel Number 1111 is a powerful symbol of the truth and purity. Seeing this number is a clear message from the Universe that it is time to find your own truth and align it with your life, your thoughts and your actions.

An image to accompany this poem can be found on the cover of Tarot #3

withered scarlet
of the bag
of the woman
standing in line
in front of
me

browned
as the blood
drained
by your bellows

gagged
just before
your
brainstem

snapped, skin
stripped,
s t r e t c h e d,
and
sent away to
be sold:

limo seats, sticky
couches, chequebook
covers,

(toes, hair, bones, eyes
neatly, conveniently detached)

red is the rouge
on the cheekbones
of this
woman
before
me

in
the
long
dress

clutching
what she is sure
is her
right.

Ahead, leaving you behind,
the Israelites glow like birthstone scales,
rippling on black flesh-wings.
Blind creatures twist in your periphery,
inverted like a nervous system.

Your chariots tangle seaweed.
Your torch-bearers blaze azure fire
through anemone fields.
You are gold wasps or black-sea scarabs;
jewels crystal-trawling the deepest deep.

You and your glittering brothers,
here until the end of days—beyond that—
until you become black-red shrines
to strange, watery gods.
Extinct pilgrims will find you

and bless you.

When your home is empty, and the ones you loved have gone.
All you have left are memories of the family you were never near.
Will you blame yourself for all the hurt you caused?
Of all the “could have’s, should have’s” that you missed:

You should have been a nicer person.
You could have shown her more love.
You should have listened to her more.
You could have heard what she had to say.
You should have paid more attention to her needs.
You could have helped around the house more.
You should have told her how nice she looks.
You could have said how pretty she is.
You should have spent more time with your son.
You could have taught him right from wrong.
You should have stayed at home more weekends.
You could have missed a few games.
You should have said no more drinks for me.
You could have gone home sober.

Or, will you blame her for not letting you have your fun,
When you really know it’s all your own fault.

Without us knowing—without anyone knowing
they disappeared. One by one the houses
came down. The ring-fences went up like
metallic centipedes circling the empty lots.

The blind machine was brought in
to chisel a hole through the earth.
The houses tumbled down; the ground
shook. We passed each morning as
the world became smaller.

Emily’s ‘Sweet, safe, houses’ are no more.
We created shorter routes to the malls.
We dug up the bodies. Relocated ourselves.
Our kids self-harm in the abandoned laundromats
in tune to the ghostly revolutions of spin cycles.

As if to reinvent a home, rough sleepers
lay still in the rubble. Their corpses
pulled each morning from the sewage pipes.
A pilgrimage they never saw to the end
they cannot separate themselves from the land.

If Emily saw this she would weep.

Massachusetts, December 2014

around town, they have hung
brilliant, twinkling
cells, pulsing lights like jellyfish who don’t know they are
dead.

every endless night an itch, and my
father calls me up first time this decade to know if I’ve been a
good girl.

haiku hangover mourning after midterms:

brain fog happening
sentences not happening
synapses in mud

invisibility: my latest superpower when you enter to say

just
kidding again

looking at everyone but me. we were a cryptic
myth when we began, but such a good one, the kind you’d want to swallow whole, and hot.

no longer a story,
only floating characters, we shiver on pieces of once
quilted promises, cloaked in ripped sheets, we taste stained, nearly
rotten.

sweaty pits, streaks of grey sun,
the kind of beauty that stings.
under the only lights, fluorescent (those
violet cells still beating), gutters still fill with grimy
white diamonds. still unsure if it’s me or you or your new
Xanax pills building the clear quicksand wall between, except then
you tell me you think maybe
zoos aren’t so bad, not really like prisons, except for the metal, and when their heads hit the concrete—

Sweet scent of sweat rises off Matuchi, that rich raw hide
of chestnut stallion allocated to me as if I could ride

bold confidence he leans down, bored, to munch on pampas grass
pulled forward, I compensate with patience

iron soles stomp, clomp familiar rocky paths echoing
crystal waves of sound through Polylepis dotted foothills

sneakered feet nudge past cordon cactus as we are lulled in a line
of dappled greys, white and brown, pinto and roan

through Argentinian Andes amateurs’ knuckled hands grip reins
while local horses stumble and trip, soles slip

sighs spill in tune with silence in the valley’s afternoon mist
trepidation hides behind walls of smiles, denim and dust

through an amphitheatre of pink sunsets and shadowy hinterland
sweat-soaked hides carry intrepid travellers back

to smoke-infused beef and red Malbec, Mendoza’s soul
salty decadence in the dark amidst mountains of lust

at sixteen
she was so beautiful
blokes fell off their bikes
riding past looking at her

a King’s boy and one
from the local high school
got in a fistfight over her
and both came off worse

of course she went out first
with the captain of the XV
who only admired himself
but she did better later on

the trick was to pretend
you weren’t interested
which took some effort
but worked in the end

fire unable to quench itself
burns beneath my skin
it’s anger
passion
it’s the headline news
it’s the late-night nudes

it’s the dancing of your fingertips
against my clit
the trigger press
my crumpled dress

it’s the face of the shooter
the corpses he left dead
and your hands pulling me close
then letting me go

the way my neck tingles beneath your lips
the way you move between my hips
wet red leaks from their mouths
their insides spill out

I see them stumbling along
hear the screaming and gunfire as if it’s a song
but you are here
saying nothing
moving
thrusting

beneath my eyelids
bloodied bodies
blood shed from bullet holes in the back of the head
breath sucked from broken lungs

but there you are

finished
done

you roll away
head finds pillow
theirs found ground
where they had just rested to pray           
and I think about the sound
                                    shocking
                                                loud

I think about how it is silent now

some things get funnier the more they happen
            like getting a lynx africa 3-in-1 set for Christmas
it is not the same with years
            each is long & full of gruelling personal growth
like how i thought the year was a palindrome
            until i realised tht i didn’t really know
                        what a palindrome was
but still it had a certain symmetry
like: one cat dies / then the other
i share a vape at a party in the warm country
            / think about grandparents in the cold country
                        waiting for bake off after the pm announcement
still there’s something to be said for the good moments
how i hiked up the hill with tht tinder date
            just in time to look through a telescope
                        & see two planets the closest
                                    they’ve been in the sky for 400 years
the oval smudge of one planet’s
            rings / the glinting moon of the other
how the year started with birds mimicking sirens /
            & now when i sit in the garden listening
                        they’re making bird sounds