Babylonian Bride

this is no artist
statement
this isn’t about
troop movements,
ship sailings,
or war
equipment

this poem
writes itself
and wants
to be
a sonnet
I have not
said
a word
I am only
the bride

welcome
to the
agency
of my poem
I have been
fired
and I wish
to file
a grievance
that this
is not even
Italian

it is my
life
looking
downward
sterling
cross
kinetic
around
a soft nape
moaning
God bless this chest

how can
the heart
go on
from beyond
the living?
dead heart fools
how do they
attract?

do they come
out from
behind
the cold,
like summer?

I am at
the altar,
betrothed to
the 1st thing
that comes
down
the aisle

I am
an arranged
Babylonian
bride
a Christian
for the
lion

this wants
to be
the volta
what good
is a
volta
going to do
me now?

I washed
myself
like Jackson
Pollock
clean scented,
standing in
black
and grey
shoes—
one of each

I exist
in couplet