number 100: cedar

with a cedar branch to my brow
the only smell now is of burning wood
as I hold you down

if i could tattoo your fingertips
to the nape of my neck
to the deep of my curve
i would do so happily
i would do so permanently

just because i came from the soil
from the womb of my mother
does not mean i am like the others
i believe in something higher
i know that i am a fire here on this earth
i'll burn to be the fire in your heart

and yet i have to live
a lifetime of flesh and lungs that wheeze
though ideally i would live the life
of a tree, or a seed
i'm beyond all of this
like my soul trying to abandon
the body i find gawky and unrefined

there was a time when i was young
when the most beautiful
thing i could imagine was the way
the words left your lips
and how they always sounded
just like music

that music brought me to the sun
brought me into the golden weave
as if born there, my hair is afire
shining bright in your mind

and I would have bathed in that sunlight
for years, had you been there
to see me glow
i was glowing for you

the most loving things i have to say
are always the same,
entangled web of delights,
"the days of juice"
the days of harp and of cedar beds

i used to boil the cedar
in a big pot to clear my home
of the ghosts, to bring in the wolf
and the raven
so that they might
tell me about you, and how best to love you

i am an amalgamation of souls
of people who have touched me
not with their hands, only with their hearts
physically, i am untouched
i am pure
even the slightest brush of hair on my cheek
sends me reeling, it's too vivid

and i get why you feel what you feel
and i get what you see
that's the world i belong in
the world of the mind, of things that are
intangible

unlike your hands, which are brightened
i am graceless and in a dress
in the doorway waiting for you
to remove me
i can say that now, and i can say that then
but after you do i'll regret my hands
and how they were not deft
and my eyes not soft
and my body not thick to cushion you
more bones, skin and water than anything
i'll regret what i said
i'll wish i hadn't
i'll wish i was strong and fluent and natural
like the cedar tree filling my house
with wood scented dreams.