ashley linkletter /
2 POEMS
Here, Saint Hildegard, b. 1098
I think of you like a secret wailing
song a monophony I pretend I can
hum in the old, old way your choruses
packed with small golden stars I imagine you in blues reds purples violets
like watercolour
a stern, singular vision a steady
and sure way towards heaven I know
you would have no doubt, no uncertainty
working in those early mornings
composing your ascension your robes
full of mysticism, secrets, whispers
of God and the raw edges of death.
INSIDE THE SHAME TOMB
A black-velvet puppet box
entombs the meat-cute marionette with the
worn scalp rubbed wrong
& the shallow sheen on velveteen shadow
only illuminates picked-over protections.
Scored by the sounds of crawling,
by the inching & scratching
of a single brittle fingernail in the all-day dark.
Little finger, little bone
I light my nighttime fires alone.
Lamplighting of the tomb
is rubbed wrong, sun-wronged &
sun-destroyed.
The tomb is both open and sewn.
Out falls the claws, the porcelain hands, the glass eyes of
of my cousin.