Two Poems

Hidden Identity

Paralyzed by lights that spring out
of nowhere, you're caught in the trap

of the liminal. Never at home in your own
skin. Searching for your animal.

Night things twitch, skitter. Swish
of tail, scrape of nails.

You could touch yourself in the dark,
find claws, talons, scales.

The disease of living eats us up.
Sleep is a bed of lies.

Any morning, you could wake to bone,
hide, holes where once were eyes.

 

Fugue

Here and not here, there and not there.
A fugitive, I've grown wings, grown
into anonymity, become unknown.

A season in transition. Call me April
or May. A traveler without a past. Call me
tabula rasa. Call me running scared.

My name's a holy text, a password,
a ticket to an unnamed destination,
clutched in my fist like a stone.

Call me Nomad, call me Peregrine.
Call me wanderer, witch. no one you know.
My name's a shibboleth, a shifting wind,

cloud shadow on water, the glittering eye
of the crow, a dark bird in my throat
and stranger, I'm trying to let it go.