I remember when my grandma listened

to me dance. She said it sounded like raindrops.

Snappin’ them fingers, thinkin’ nobody lookin’

invoked the rhythms of the water,

made present by the rhythm in the blood. 

A cradle of discord

deceives with tumultuous wails

from between my legs.

Sex calls honor

belonging

to mother and father.

Be in their image but

bypass their mistakes,

do as I say not as I do

and God reveals

in the language of the stones,

“Know me in them”,

do as I say not as I do.

Dancing is the moment where shame is silent.

It is as sacred to God as the prayer

because it withholds nothing and asks for all.

A smile without torment is rare for our breed

still cloaked by the garments of the cross.

Be with me. Wear strands of my golden noose.

Let them curl and drink, not water, but wisdom of the self,

pouring out through the ruptures of a punctured lung

Creep up the skin and take the mouth.

Give it words, give it prayers,

that do not feel too cruel for

flesh, that do not stagnate

nor go quietly

Because it is love, then love should free

the caged children—

the dove, peacock, lion and dog

but because it is the old love,

humbly beautified by Sebastian’s rosettes,

and Wilde’s green carnation, and because

it is not the truth of many, championed by

a legion of defenders ,

Flesh cries out the memory

of the tomb, a catacomb of

shattered perfection where iniquity

breeds into the space

between the stars