sad poem

As I trace these swirling lines
out of the elegiac palms of my black hands
I feel myself being lifted
out of the ground by my roots, plucked
bare and writhing from the shivering soil
to twist gray-faced and wizened like a breach birth
hanging from the palms of your blank,
white hands. And as my
poisoned roots swell around my heart
I twist and curl tighter
trying to avoid your murderous hands
trying to enshrine myself
nymphlike in a cave of bark
squinting my eyes against the the needle rays
of the eclipse that is rolling across your
beautiful eyes, and slowly hiding
your once-beautiful gaze.

And from this height you drop me
a wan and helpless teardrop
an acorn from the mighty oak
of your barren hostility. I know
this is not you, o towering
one, o sterile mask. You look
at me like I am a dead thing
(and maybe I am)
and I cling to you with my poisoned roots,
crying for fear
that both of us will die.

Paradoxically, I will always remember you as you now
hold me: a small child
wrapped in bark, trying
desperately to protect against the harsh
winds that blow outside the boundaries of love, a selfmade
papoose, raising hands to protect against the harsh
blinding sliver, the eclipse's knife edge,
that pale sickle that acts
as a solitary and pathetic tribute,
the surrendering flag of all we used to know
and now still hold, dear.