maybe this morning

The bed sagged in the middle and of course there were no sheets

she slept with her feet hanging off the side because the city had stolen her shoes and her soles spent the night picking up all the soot that Frenchman Street had laid down for her

It was heavy on a Sunday and when you woke up the screen door banged

She was outside in that white dress when you sat down and perhaps in your own peculiar way apologized

She said, you scared me in that alley last night

you said, you were scared of her too but you couldn't tell her why, you couldn't give it all away just yet

then, somewhere, a breezy corner lifts the curtain from a window and time becomes the bridge over the fairground and the two of you are walking across it sharing little bowls of the things you want to fill each other with

She is trying to learn what it means when you angle your eyebrows and you keep asking her for words instead of the soft looks she serves you to keep herself away 

now in the shower you are sharing a single stream. Sleep has left you in the same corner where the taxis wouldn’t come

Here she wonders when you’ll tell her the end of your secret and how much she really scares you and why and if she'll ever be okay with letting you in

on turns and turquoise and my twenty-fourth

It's the eve of my great turn, the 24th turn and as my father noted the greatest because every circle I spin out into a better woman and every unfolding has had me reaching upwards, outwards. Leaning towards the light like the basil in my bedroom. Tonight there is a tingling at the base of my spine it's reminding me to stay connected to muladara as I continue spinning. Tonight it's too cloudy to see the full moon but I feel it in the corner of my smile and can taste it when I lick my lips and can touch it when I reach inside, I know it's in Scorpio and I know it bodes well for me. This afternoon on a whim and because I had let the wind whip my hair down foothills for too long I Bought myself the turquoise ring I have been eyeing for months. Sometimes on a lonely day I would wander northbound and try it on in that dusty store. I like the shop because she let's me walk in barefoot and circle round the rugs wearing that ring. I'd slide my fingers across dusty table tops and those painted ladders and glance at my out stretched palm but I'd always leave the way I came in - barefoot and longing. Well today was the eve of my great turn and I left the shop dripping in turquoise, tasting the full moon on my lips, still barefoot, full.