All this scandal men and their jokes fall flat,
waking the blue chaos inside. Make me
the saint of the exile and the wildcat,
the mad girl, the adulteress still hungry
for love. Never let us be so unloved
that we start to believe that joke, that crust
the dull and savage dress us in. Beloved
daughter, spirit of my flesh, ghost of rust
and dark re-animation, these are gifts
I’ll dress you in. The color of gasping
breath, the heartbeat’s first beat, a mewl that drifts
from your throat. Rise and rejoin the living.
I am no Prospero, no Frankenstein.
Still, my art is crude, erotic, sublime.