Poems to a Stranger

I.

When I let poetry go
I never realized how hard it'd be
to summon it back.
Now I want to write about you
Frame you with objectivity
A cut-out figure I can snip and
paste with a tongue-flick tongue's-lick
into lines and angles
Pry your hooded eyes open
so you see me. Not blurred, not in
flesh.
this insidious rust over my pen
skin eyes…
Do you know of the time I cried
hurting, fretting, shredding
not knowing why? Fool women,
will we learn not to veil our words
our needs
Will we learn not to trust you to see through
or want to see through?
Now, stranger, when I hear of roses,
I still withdraw
dazed
to lick my wounds.
Could you figure out why?
I couldn't.

II.

The name of two syllables,
yours,
that I had made my own
my nature-cry
native in my mouth as intimacy
howls at its dereliction -
they call you by another name
parch-dry as I rub
it between my fingers
roll it, taste it, spit it out
It's no longer strange to talk
of you with strangers
You're a stranger too.