writer, storyteller, veteran (see MaxieJaneFrazier.com for more)
Striking hooves, thudding.
Muscular shoulders kniving beneath me.
I smell horsey-sweat,
Bracing for him to take flight.
Unicorns, elegant rhinos,
Real as the toes on my feet.
Fantasy knubs under my chubby heels,
Until the fine hairs of feathers sprout.
We both, unicorn and fancy,
Take flight. Then the call to supper.
The unicorn lands in Bosch’s world.
I land on an earth void of delights.
‘Til we meet again
(inspired by Joy Harjo’s “She Had Some Horses,” resurrected for NaPoWriMo prompt)
(Thank you Na/GloPoWriMo for featuring my poem on Day Twenty-Seven of NaPoWriMo 2019)
She wore armor
She wore armor over her beating heart
She wore armor over her pendulous breasts
She wore armor over her curving hips
She wore armor over her mound of flesh.
She wore armor
She wore armor over her good ideas
She wore armor over her strong hands.
She wore armor over her written words
She wore armor over her selfless service
She wore armor.
She wore armor over the cold space in their bed
She wore armor over the spoken wounds
She wore armor over the indifference
She wore armor over the goodbye
She wore armor.
She wore armor when her husband left
She wore armor on the morning metro
She wore armor at her Pentagon desk
She wore armor in her smile.
She wore armor
Her armor shifted under his gaze.
Her armor protested under his hands
Her armor groaned under his kiss
Her armor cracked under his weight
She opened her armor.
Is safety an emotion?
What is a life lived
Peering out from shelter?
From a position of stasis?
Once the bogey man
Pushed me over a cliff.
In the freefall moment,
Buoyed only by air,
The worst came true.
I didn’t die on the rocks,
Rushing up to me as if
I was the one who was
Holding still.
The enormous pain
Sheared open my heart.
The shoreline presented a
Sheer wall and
I climbed the cliff again.
How do I know what a poem should be?
Poems are secrets opened with
Careful, surgeon’s fingers,
Revealing the beating heart beneath.
Poems point a finger at me,
And at you,
Truths peeling back our armor.
Poems slips knives between
Our ribs,
Sharp with life-threatening pain.
Poems are prescriptions,
Lenses opening our eyes,
World suddenly new.
