To what great history
does she refer when she answers
the moon’s terrible pull
with rage and torment
that the earth will not swallow her yet
not the history of multiplication
but maybe of single numbers
she is a straw in the smoke bitten
wind.
©billie late 70s
Songs to dead lovers:
if you have not consented to be my lover
I claim you still
like a cold and killing envelope of snow
over all hope of new growth’s promise
but you consumed by the fierce heat
of elemental will to vanish boldly
elude my crude grasp
you must be an innocent birth
and my death the center of your
blazing heart
©billie 1979
Last Will and Testament:
All that matters is the skeleton. If
In ideal repose, fetal is good--
protective, like Aztec child mummies.
But if flatly forced, let the box be simple
pine. Fast feast of deathly horror, and
eternal peaceful noble bones.
Don’t embalm me. Give my living parts
to the living. Remember me
in your movements, your best unguarded
expressions, as I do you.
©billie 02
