I think I've been writing black poems all along, wearing my white mask. I'm always the victim ... but no longer!

I would like a simple life / yet all night I am laying / poems away in a long box.

Give me your skin as sheer as a cobweb, let me open it up and listen in and scoop out the dark.

I lay there silently, hoarding my small dignity. I did not ask about the gate or the closet. I did not question the bedtime ritual where, on the cold bathroom tiles, I was spread out daily and examined for flaws. I did not know that my bones, those solids, those pieces of sculpture would not splinter.

Women tell time by the body. They are like clocks. They are always fastened to the earth, listening for its small animal noises.

I hoard books. They are people who do not leave.

The snow has quietness in it; no songs, no smells, no shouts or traffic. When I speak my own voice shocks me.