how long do the embers smolder
until the heart heaps into ash?
until each bit of bone, blood, hair and hope
is eaten by the soft gray mouths of peace
and fortress and winter and stone
a litany lost, a word trailing

but here i stand, cold-bit hands
against your skull, oh Noisiu
tugging your tresses and your proprieties
crow-feather against my instep, black
as your hair, as my night without hope
black as the night birthing the year

and my flame-mouth cursing
and the reel of you thinking --
"a beauty, but only in flesh --
a hag of the soul, bed-bound
to another, and only a pit when
the sun-face dims from night"

how long do the embers smolder
until the heart heaps to ash?
no heifer am i in the cow-pen
no slave shackled by rules, but ruled
only by the fever that runs red
down the mountains, eating the trees

with the clamor of fury, the steel clash
of pride, of beauty that is but
ornamentation, a bauble, a glass bead
crushed under heel -- your heel
my baubled heart in your white grip
and you, tossing your hair in warding

in warning -- how long do embers
flare up until they crumble into
coal? the mare stamps -- take me
with you, come with me.
and you turn, no answer staining
your lips as the coals flare