She lives beneath my skin

A blind and tortured viper gliding through darkness

Looking for air and light and the right way to escape

This slithering princess with her endless needs, lusty and lithe

Her creamy hands clutching at pearls of wisdom while swine await their bounty

The scenes float down, manna for a-muse-ment

Gossamer dreamscapes that undress me in the early blue

Lingering over my sleeping skin

Nestling in the fertile crescent of my body

Only to be gone when I awake

Stinging shadow image through closed lids

Teasing lover spiriting away, violet scarf aflutter

And I, setting the table for company that never arrives

 

Sometimes I get the words right, or at least not wrong

And my writing, she stands on proud, strong legs

Bare-breasted and bold

Sexy as sin on a Sunday

Then, the war within to cannibalize my essence

A soul-slicing, wolfen attempt to scoop out the meaty flesh at the heart

Of all that I am

Drenched in bloody attempts at success

I am a great moaning beast whose blood flow slows

To the muddiest of paces

 

Brain, brash mother of all thought and word

Is stirrup-ed and heaving under harsh lights

Thighs quivering but not delivering

Anything but ooze and misshapen potential

In this, she and I are twins

Aiming, failing to produce and reproduce

The Ultimate Poetry

Plath’s riddle in nine syllables, her fat purse rich with money

Wordless dirge, flayed heart

And yet, I circulate in a world teeming with meaning

Pregnant with the things we know but can’t speak

Lush as an August rain falling from soaked limbs

 

He sits four feet from me, lips loose and succulent

Skin redolent with sacred intimacy while those magnificent hands

(the ones that roam my landscape in the still breath of night)

Sketch tiny beauty onto a piece of sea glass

 

Is there a word bigger than love, he asks

 

How do I explain the hot star at my core

The deafening waves of need I feel

The vulnerable, collapsible world we inhabit

That his scents incite me to blossoming

And how love is a dangerous business

Full of thrusting, feinting and possible death

But in this, my crude tools lack luster

They are pablum and circuses, safe for babies

Clear, odorless and edible

So I grab my spade in silence and dig a slow channel from my soul to yours

While my eyes tell of the mystery of you

---

Rebeca Ervin has been a professional communicator for more than two decades, first as a journalist and press secretary, and now as a legal marketing professional in Washington, DC. She enjoys photography and is an avid reader of just about anything, but it is in writing poetry that she finds her soul soaring. A native of San Antonio, Texas, she is now firmly planted in the rich soil of the Old Dominion State with her husband and three bonus-children. Follow her on Twitter at @RebecaErvin.