My Room Without You

-- for Shequita Cyprian

Chilling wind at the shutter. A bone hard
affair at the Bottom Line. A feeling gone
to lunch on making things new, stifled by
a shrewd lover with the touch, the promise

of lips, of no in-betweens. Can't speak of
forgiveness. From door to door, hyenas
laugh at the sad times. Recollection—it hurts
to begin again, to fear rejection like a slave

driver's whip, hungry for torment. Nailed
to a cottonwood. Care slips away like love
and tenderness. Foolish things won't be still.
Can't wait for her to kiss the jagged hurt

to ride me underground, from the blind side
like a woman with her face turned two ways:
a mirrored face on well water. I contain
my strange love, the best kind of hoodoo

my blue creation to tip toe on a mind,
a dry rose on the thread of a spider's web:
guitar-played tales at moonlit crossroads,
voted most likely to turn dogs into men.