between dark dreams

I know nothing
of the poet Audre Lorde.
Yet I know she is
a carving in water
held in an ebony chalice.

I know nothing of her anger,
yet I believe her capable
of devouring the unspent pain
of secret insomniacs. Sleepless,
I see her before an altar of flame
kept in an urn of shadows.

I truly know nothing
of this woman, of her lips'
lamentations or of what she does
beyond midnight, but I believe
that she thrashes in the quick
of sleep caught between dark dreams
in a net sewn of severed hearts.
 
 
                                                         Published in Danse Macabre