daniel ames

“she whispers into my truculenceand I succumb to that thing called faiththat blind old hag who left her brothers and sistersunder the overpassshe strokes her way into my soula divining rod slips from the heavensa greasy old senior citizenwith stale coffee breathand a proverb for any situationshe recounts the transgressions from a lifetime agowith a glassine visionthe images move in a circular sway,dashing from light to darktruisms to falsehoodsthis is a woman, my friend, with whom you can ride the riverand gaze at the mountainthis is a womanwith a heart fired by the very furnace of Hellyet beats with the sonnets of God”

“she said, when I wear these boots no one fucks with mewhen I tie my past like a scarf around my throatI can freeze the bloodof every naive and unabashed up-and-comerwhen I slide on my desire like glowing black stockingsI can make the uninitiated begfor the feel of raw and stinging woodand when I slip my angry black leather beltfrom its rusty hookthe ambitious and guileless cowerlike a thousand condemned soulswhen I close my fist, my rings goldenwith a youth well spentthe warriors of Gilead surrenderwith a breathless whimperand when my shouldersfeel the rough comfort of my serape woven with the fibersof a fierce and relentless vengeanceyou will soon realizethese are not my clothes after all, she says,they are warning signs”