Body

Give us back
What belongs to us,
Keep your eyes
In your sockets
Not chase after us,
Let your poison-tipped barbs
Stay in your quiver,
Allow us to forget
The cross we carry
The bleeding wounds
That mark us for life,
Do not keep telling us
What fig-leaf we should wear
What we should not,
Stop blaming us even
When you violate us,
Do not call us goddesses
Those you pay lip service to
Before you hound us
As if we were sorceresses.

In denial

In the unreal night
Of the death-dazed house
I clutch at the faintest sounds;
I steal from room to room
Hoping she has somehow come home;
Is she now merely hiding
Like a child
Behind the door
Or under the bed
Just waiting to be found?
Maybe I have forgotten
She was again staying over
With her ailing father,
Tomorrow she might walk in
Through the door
Like the other time,
With sleepless eyes
Yet eager to take
The house off our hands ---
How I wish I can go to sleep
Wake up and find her
Next to me, still asleep.