Angora

The fear of aging and cage of femininity

The faint curve of mortality
is often mistaken for platitude
saccharine failure drips — drip

The lace pin tips its blade in nighttime
brook married to red
wrenching fists bloody —

Decades regress — Stone Age
childhood shadows come unbraided
black heart — tethered here, entombed

Knock, knock on the coffer wood
stake abandoned — laid here, a sister
little rats scratching my corpse skin

Scitter, scitter — smack
tails smacking wormy soil
vampire teeth gnawing my fingers

Peeling, houndstooth walls
mirror, I trace my crow's feet
nailed to the musty, satin sheets

The coffer jams open to daybreak,
crowbar pretending to rescue
yet I know the angora-gem box —

Is better than the wide, open field
the failure-flesh I feast; drip — drip, tongue
hand tugging, lifting me to nowhere

thirty is so near.