Conocimientos de beneficios legales ofrecidos por el Estado Con

Fortuna Minor To the Beloved

Behind the glass shower door, I see her skin pebbled as a riverbed. Knots of bone along spine, smooth skipping stones rippling the surface. We are not alone in believing what touches us sinks deep like these. I see the things he did that upset her also scrawled there in angry crimson, unreadable as braille raised on a page. I want to be blind to the script wrapping around her wrists— barbs from a jellyfish tentacle. The venom of them sets in as nemocysts release poison until she is a bundle of gasps and spasms I gather from the bathtub floor. Nerves threadbare as the towel that envelops her shivers, cycled between benevolence and violence so often they’re exchangeable. Both tender to the giver. The scars outlive their summers, turn sun into a long suffering without the hyphen. A lumunious pendulum in an interrogation room singing: O death, where is thy sting? Beloved, victory is for the living. Throw the opaque bell back to sink like a trampled petal. Some creatures can only drive someone to love vinegar.

The Song of Songs IV

Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead.

Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing; whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them.

Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks.

Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men.

Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies.

Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense.

Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.

Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon: look from the top of Amana, from the topof Shenir and Hermon, from the lions' dens, from the mountains of

the leopards.

Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck.

How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and

the smell of thine ointments than all spices!

and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.

A garden inclosed ismy sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.

Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with

spikenard,

Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices:

A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.

Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices

Kumiho Call me a fox.

I’ll show you my tricks, be the only woman to swear she can’t survive without your company and mean it. We are both tender, hunters with different games in mind. Let me play marbles

with your sea glass irises. The onyx pupils that roll back ecstatic sometimes would spin around the table, little prisms my prisoners. If they were pearls I’d wear them for dinner,

where I’ll order your liver

to go, devour it on the way home because I’m—what did you say? Insatiable. A thousand years of moderation seems wasteful when I know how easy it is to deal with devils, to fool angels. Close your marble eyes.

You cannot catch the little foxes spoiling the vines, the vines that have tender grapes.

Dream of all the men I’ve needed needing me more. It’s a shame they could live without me.

Memento

When I leave them, I pocket a token: wine corks, leather gloves, blue bottle caps, even a jacket once

because I’m cold-blooded like a serial killer or a tourist I want to remember

the site undisturbed

as morning. Before waking we could’ve been dead, cold and still as we were

when sleep shushed us, said no questions. Only dreams, more riddles to unravel along with limbs and motives from the night’s remnants, to sort what should be kept like clothes. One is left always wanting. I know too well, what cannot be gathered from my share of the scatter at our feet is petty, dignity

in not going home empty-handed as I came when I leave them.

Dream Escapes

We are both of the dark. We know this best when skin is a pale moon rising to untie the silk robe of navy sky and you return to me with ravens. Velveteen wings

matted in the midnight of your hair. I stroke their slick backs—feathers settle like dreams nest in eaves above sleep. We exile each other from this grey country until morning, awake stranger bodies shivering together. You will ask for

the dream. The one that holds a knife to its telling until remembering is like pulling shells

from the coquina walls of that childhood castle. Stone mining skin for broken ocean bones, that jagged composite of memory and reality digging into the meat of small palms as I dig also. We are both of the dark. We know this best when all waking leaves to be understood is blood under nails. How could I tell you? The dream escapes me as it escapes itself, by whatever means. Stranger bodies shivering.

A Vigil

White candlewax dripped patternless spatter onto bricks like the rain that did not wash it away, would not aid and abet our long forgetting. Bird noise in trees, a clutter of songs and wings hunched in branches— murders that fly from a villain’s feet. Winter’s vigil is a continual numbing, ashes on heads, a dead snow falling.

There is no beauty for them. Only sackcloth to rend at the city gates for what

we cannot save. Hollow bells collide against some suspense within, ring against each other on the hour as bodies mute the heart’s tantrums. We wring hands the rain would not wash either.

The Song of Songs III

By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him

not.

I will rise now, and goabout the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him

whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.

The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?

It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.

I charge you, Oye daughtersof Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hindsof the field,that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.

Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all powders of the merchant?

Behold his bed, which is Solomon's; threescorevaliant men are about it, of the valiant of Israel.

They all hold swords, being expert in war: every man hath his sword upon his thigh

King Solomon made himself a chariot of the wood of Lebanon.

He made the pillars thereof of silver, the bottom thereof of gold, the covering of it of purple, the midst thereof being paved with love, for the daughters of Jerusalem.

Go forth, Oye daughtersof Zion, and behold king Solomon with the crown wherewith

his mothercrowned him in the day of his espousals, and inthe day of the gladness of his

Jawbones For Lullabies

Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness.

— from Judges 14:14 (KJV)

Here, with the knife-glint in my eye and night falling thick as your hair in my hands, I am my own heroine. You will swear otherwise, insist that I am loveless. Seductress sent to ensnare you. But know this, I was not without love. For such blind desire I sang lullabies, ferried honeyed words and meant them. Then I heard the whispers: A riddle and the wrath after. A thousand bones broken upon one. I’ve known men apart from their monsters in bed, but to stir you from rest would be waking death, asleep on my lap. Beloved, I’ve had no jawbone to wield but my own, pulled out each night for lullabies. Where your strength lies I am there also, born to be your villain as much as your woman. With the riddle of this last kiss, I leave you here.

A Lament

I knew you like I knew rivers— the shallows I could wade through and the currents I could drown in. From wherever I stood, unending. How you shimmered like a cut of coal sometimes, blinking into the sun that mined light from your face. And how you’d spend days in bed when it rained. Dull and listless, a cold flood rising in your black eyes. What is left for the body given over to sorrow, an upwelling like blood circulating underfoot? I know this is what many waters cannot quench.