The Dark Mother Virus
Kali stirs inside me.
She drips herself down
through my chest,
tangles around bone and meat.
When I breathe,
she breathes.
I begin
to forget.
Always she comes from the inside,
always the inside of someone else:
some passive womb,
some tongue lying calm in a pink mouth.
A pale face cracks
and darkness hurricanes out.
Always it’s for the Other
that the Other comes.
Who do you love?
The one for whom
you would drink rivers,
demons of blood.
Kali waits.
She hides
between your breasts,
in the sole of your shoe.
Behind your eyes she dances
through synapses and nerves,
an electric pulse
waiting
for the moment to reprogram.
published in Windfall, Truman State Univesity literary magazine (2000) (winner: best poem)