A Goddess Under the Bed

On knees

 she reached beneath her bed,

opening white hands' black box.

untouched transclucent air,

perfume's tissue, breathing sweet dead leather. 

Two sculptures, each red shoe,

reverantly brought out.

Down to her naked feet,

sliding fingers, willowing straps,

leather clasping gold,

a buckle at each ankle, slim.  

Four inches taller, looking down,

affected legs, longer below smaller waist,

curved calves fuller, stopping

at the nipped boundary of red horizons.

she dressed and left.  

That night,

strange music's crooked echo turned

dark streets slick,

rain remotely drinking far off rhythms,

gutters rose, stacattoed footstep's hurry.

Blue stones descent to cellar's swollen  door,

pulled open into dim low celinged

centuries dank- familiar scent,

nodding, she removed her wrap,

and sat, to smoke a cigarette, tequila and a red-lipped laugh.  

Brown shouldered walls leaned broad and heavy,

mens' backs dividing furrowed earth,

paid out to drink their daily sweat,

from fields they'd never own or worse,

been stolen, scraping from weary muscles into glass,

a siphoned bitterness,

torn loss that only liquor made forget.  

She knew their hearts were kind,

shadows crouching hungry eyes,

denying sadness, still, until guitarists

touched the ancient; lit again heart's songs to live-

no one remembered who they were or why they'd come.  

As antique fingers twisted tuning strings,

her hair came loose,

black strands slid golden body's instrument,

then softly testing strums,

whispering trinity's vibration,

soul's deep resonance in listening ear's old bones.  

Harmony elusive found her music

burning joyful waves of freedom,

native voices sang,

clapping flames of passion,

rhythm's stomping dust off worn boots,

crying for her, Come!  

Swaying, blood red, in new heels,

she hushed their voices by appearing,

tongues of candles, quiet,

flickered on scratched floor,

her body spoke; 

pale arms of slender reaching,

hell and heaven spinning skirt of fire

expanding, almost stroking earthen walls-

she circled ghosts, those gestures of the dead,

their faces spoke in smoke's forgotten language,

graceful veins pulsing desperate, whiskey beneath toes,

precisely breaking each in gasping breath's seductive slap,

hip's swivel, arching neck,

with slitted eyes, blue blinding,

shadows ached to see,

their hands stretched empty, stained with soil,

hope's only touch- black second's lash of silky hair,

her spinning hem's rich promise there in that red skirt,

an ember's scorch might palm a man's dreamed memory,

all empty, lonely weeks ahead.  

She danced until their sweat

sang down her drenching skin,

to midnight's drowning bloom, 

she danced until each string soaked broken

and the dawn fell silencing thirst's sleepy rain.

Each field quenched lay still warming dry.

Sun rising hot, his whipping clock,

demanding every man must work.

She sadly smiled pale lips, her last, a final drink,

a lonely cigarette and nothing more.

The stragglers asked, but she knew men.

Safe in her wrap, the quiet, turning alleys, home.

Alone each tired foot,

the black box took her secrets back,

on her knees, buried beneath, the bed once more.