Alençon Lace Tourniquet

 

1.

I dreamed of a huge dragonfly

it was enormous, as large as the palm of my hand

black and gold

But I killed it

it was an accident

its body was curled in the crystal fruit bowl

 

I picked it up

“Made in China.”

Lies lies lies!

 

Was my desire also a lie?

Was it interference?

Was it so that I would stop obsessing?

My friends did not know.

And that was fine.

 

The fieldfares are copulating in the branches

It is Beltane morning, the morning of

this immense desire and –

 

Is it not feathered and impetuous and in a state

of intense rushing and dying, like the birds?

 

Clyde has a hard time getting why.

Véronique gets why.

Willow remains a mystery.

 

Mrs. Dalloway regains consciousness and steps lively into lace

and yet pj’s, because that is how she operates, in unexpected avenues.

 

 

2.

The fieldfares’ nest is now abandoned: apparently, someone interfered with their mating and nesting ceremonials. But it’s the tits’ tree, after all. The tits’ and the doves’. The small birds dive into their tiny nest inside the treetrunk.

 

I was airing my pinstriped trousers and drinking limoncello with copious amounts of crushed ice. I was a woman with secrets and a newly appointed goddess incarnate to whom young lady poets told things. I was now sleeping with the man who had unceremoniously abandoned me months earlier, and I was not regretful or ashamed. I was desire, and it did not matter that there was an air of lunacy surrounding this – contact. The man whose name I no longer knew no longer loved me, but it seemed to matter to me less than it would have before. He claimed he did, indeed, love me very much, but I had no idea whether this was a lie, like the dragonfly.

 

I was a woman on the precipice of greatness: I was about to become immortal. I was a woman facing her own inadequacies, reacquainting myself with my self-worth and keeping true to who I was now. I was drinking limoncello with ice and felt like I could take on the world if I wanted to. Things with the man without a given name would work out, somehow. I was nursing my resentments, but sipping them slowly among the alcohol made them manageable. I was missing my family, but even that felt manageable, almost theoretical.

 

I had no interest in doing anyone any favors. The sex was, if possible, even better than before. I was a woman taking care of myself. I was a woman making plans to see my lover again and not telling anyone about it because I had no interest hearing what anyone had to say about it. The trousers, a hand-me-down from my father years ago, were swaying gently on the tree.

 

I was a woman awake.

 

 

3.

The sky a brilliant, thundering gray with sparkling edges here and there marking ruptures in cloud masses as the sun pierces its menacing stare down at us, sinful earthlings; what gorgeous, cold, sobering weather! It is another beginning of the day and Alexandra has started her morning in masturbating rapture and choosing books to buy.

 

 

4.

Pax.

a sky full of thunderous clouds and now

a whisper of rain, but the whisper is, to me,

very intense, almost erotic.

I pray in the willows and the maple still

with its nest destroyed, but the dove comes still,

and she sat on my balcony railing as I prayed,

looking at me.

 

My third eye opened now:

and the nest destroyed, yes, but I will

swim in the dark underwaters of the springtime

and make a mark in its stream:

the hares will notice me gone

the doves won’t find me caressing my body in the window

the wallpaper will cease growing its flowers

the ivy will blacken and die.

 

My prayer trees are losing their luster

they have seen me through attacks of the

outer world but

my jewels still protect me

I will wear my pendant, a sacrament, and

have the holy man touch me deeply and where

I hid my origami butterflies

anointed in a rush of blood now because

I am inside my payers and intensive care.

 

Make me remember I am not my trials

Make me remember how my garden feels

I can conjure my once wildlife and

my medicine will come easily:

I am resting calmly inside my easy life

I let the holy man touch me

he thinks highly of himself and sure,

let him think it:

niceties are skin deep though

but the hand of god is like a remedy

the hand of god feels like

sharp pressure:

I will lose its name in pleasure

I do not know if it’s love and his

superficial mixture of selfish care and lies

no longer bothers me

I am a woman on the precipice of greatness

and the holy man, whether a god or not

marks me as his contact, this is fine:

I am not doing him any favors

I want to have what belongs to me

a faker god, maybe, with a kingdom

come with floods and insects swarming

but I am a newly anointed goddess

I possess him secretly, and I know

he falls asleep in the bathtub and always

thinks of himself first, a surprise and

needing intimate knowledge

I am inside my prayer I am esoterica

my god sits in the back of a limousine

my god comes in a wrapper of cellophane

I wear my peach lace camisole

put up my graying hair with bobby pins

let the orgasm run free.

 

 

 

 

This work contains a pair of lines from the Nine Inch Nails banger anthem Starfuckers Inc., from the album The Fragile, 1999.

Performed first live at Onda Poetry Mic in May 2026