Pen Names

Light in the wee hours is crepe-like;

white, draped gauze across a wound.

Forgotten, now, the injurious moment,

to all but two: flame and shadow.

A place is outlined between them

as by the weight of a fingernail—

swift on the toes of night. Those who see

see the dawn and stretch out their wings.

Lo, at the coming hearth, flame sees you.

The shaed realm had kept you safe, and I,

unsure of happenstance or incitement,

dimmed my fire to smoldering coals.

Burrowed deep within the earth, long

asleep, they did not stir, yet I set a wildfire

avow. My light in the mid-hours

catches peony colors in sharp contrast.

Pray tell: what’s in a name—

sorrow and misery? The truth is denied.

Repentance? Nay—dash it upon the rocks!

You must have learned from tenderness

and pity; your mother’s sister. You favor

a gentler façade, feminine in total eclipse.

For light at evening is cut with blush;

draped silk around the hip.

Shadow and flame know an illusion: this,

the ancient serpent. Lo, you wear him well

in all your incarnations. What is it this time?

Plentiful grins? Honeyed words on a new tongue?

How you forget: mouths have an inset posture.

The foulest, forked palate is not usurped

by pleasantness. You well know, any fool

can feed the devils, be them crumbs,

be them cakes. All the smiles burn to ash.

See, promises remember and guilt forgets,

it pokes and prods, learns to peddle names

and as for flames, I hear they count shadows.

My wildfire will ravage innocents. Your

black lotus—illusory, slick, transmogrifying

endlessly. Light in blackest night blinds all

without trying, and you’ll lose petals in bear traps.

But I vow to remain dimmed. Come out!

You must know yourself to be at home here,

this land of the shaed. Not one knows its depths,

though I suspect you can manage beasts.

Pray—What’s in a name? You bear no fruit,

no, but take as much as you can carry:

apple, pomegranate, melon; else they’ll rot.

Such food is beloved by the corrupted.

One such remains elusive: the cherry:

bitter, black. Shadow has the due credit,

shrouding it as invisible as itself. For it is.

I hear it makes a sweet liqueur. I hear

of a secreted region in Dalmatia,

one which bears a familiar name. Oh—

but what’s in a name? False, Dalmatia.

Home of the amarasca. You know

and I, the layers of sugar atop a delicate,

sour flesh. My well-wishes go to shrouded

adventures and reinventions. Light

in the early hours creeps, breath-like

over a history since erased; thin

as a blink-and-you-miss-it. Once,

this flame sought the ill-begotten truth.

Knowledge beads off a well-oiled pelt.