Woman, I wish I didn't know your name.

What could you be? Silence in my house

& the front yard where the dogwood

wouldn't make up its mind about flowers.

Aren't you Nature? A stem cringing, half-

shadowed beneath a torque of rain.

I too am leaving. I too am half-spun.

The other day near the river

I bent down & Narcissus

turned his immaculate mouth

away, refusing to caress

my howls. Silence in the trees

all around the shotgun house & that scent

of cedar whenever I dream.

I turn the light around on the ground,

sweeping the red mud, holding

the light like a rattler. Like a hood of

poison, fitted over my face. Cobra

woman, slicked with copperhead flutes.

I too am fleeing. My face born

in a caul of music. Bravado.

The men come into the yard

& pull all my clothes off,

walk me into the house,

into my own kitchen.

Tell me not to say

say I'm wrong.