Matins

 

i hopscotch countries and waters
leave everything to find you It’s after midnight
moon of opium and emeralds from Iraq
you send me 4 campaign flags
and a compass
dog prayers
Scarlet Globemallow, Sphaeralcea coccinea Nutt.
a way to navigate

 

Lauds

where i see you
steel clouds and the treetop touching

                                                   sex

                                                   a kind of penetration

                                                   a lie// a hunger//an echo

i have disappeared Am extinguished
expired like the date on a pot roast
where love and need is taboo and obscured
you called me there to you
only to place me in the enemy camp
hating me for my fortitude hating me for my honesty
see how i have to leave now
echo away Driving through towns that are barely attached to the earth
salt flats and flowers so tiny they bloom and die the same day
cage bloom, mescal, the beaded whip You should learn from this
Rattles are born here and the long chat
the gaze into yesterday
a heaving until you are on the floor

Prime

call of the angels
turn of the colors
turn to stone
it’s in the thunder
shudder of the earth
gathering of the souls
in a field is a cold truth
upon the ground of Gabriel
i am hope’s daughter
and bound towards
the song at sunrise

Terce

you know me from the shooting range and late camps
where my eyes were yellow behind my Beretta glasses A complicated girl
don’t worry about it I learned to be //normal//
pouring lead into the small  molds My hands very steady
Luger on the night table Luger to my head Somehow i survived that summer
season of trapped smoke and fallen deer
we are watching dogs get stuck together and eat pickles from the corner store

Sext

a hell and a long road
it splits in ways you hadn’t anticipated A witch’s corner
Here you must be vigilant and learn
the difference between strength and fortitude

Vespers

strange perfume
vine windy
this place is coyote bush, oysters, and cannabis rising
the fennel is in small bloom Saint John’s Wort still yellow in the field
it is early summer and i wish still

                          //comeback comeback comeback comeback// 

perhaps i meant it  But it’s too late for husbands
see how easy it is to forget
how i don’t mean it in my thin blue dress I lie you know
and turn lilac and verbena
so that you stay melancholy and blue

Compline

wrapped in gold
she raises a flag at the river
plants 7 more
colored thunder, metal, hurricane and justice
colored mountain, sea, crossroads and vine
who really knows how many days we have left here
she wants you to know how this is
toe to heel toe to heel
she walked Walks still
beneath the elephant tree and back to the compound
returning unharmed returning silent
because she sings the songs
because she listens to the Bananaquit
because she died beneath the earth
she is the low badger and nightingale
who offers the bright clothes
raised above the calabash
she stands in the center of the four bar cross
let us speak quietly
let us speak sweetly
let us bring flowers
power of the tongue
power of the breath
a walking back without turning

Copyright © 2014/16 Jolaoso Prettythunder.  All Rights Reserved.

Previously published in Cloud Women’s Quarterly Journal