By Madison
Date: 11 January 2000

hoarding solitude

That's my voice in you, I hear it, words that
cry from inside out, so much my 
own they smell of charred mesquite 
in summertime, a year ago July.
The layman's job I did of handing down 
your solitude, a gift, an altar's 
offering, that felt like steady blows
to what I held as real

and true 
and all things good. 
The earth goes numb beneath a crackling sheet 
of ice.  I am an ailing cat - circling for seclusion, 
digging, thinly scratching for a swatch of fiber 
where my scent remains.  I am a wooden Indian 
inside a hutch, sedate, there are no 
edges on my cardboard face.

You found the missing witnesses.
Scattered, casually conspicuous, the trail you 
leave, crumbs 
ladled with guilt like lumps in southern gravy.
They thought we were a pair; they said I was 
a pretty one; it's what you wanted me to be.
At least ten people asked, you say
they wonder where I am.

Tonight my stomach growls to 
dine alone, to hoard my gift of solitude 
that feels like holy water mending.
Gutters overflow the backstreet curbs I walk
in shoes you disapprove, 
soggy squeaking canvas wet with clay.  
Cold on biting cold, I feed my soul; 
I own my skin.

A chorus line of keys shuffle 
from a silver chain.  I circle blocks of brick 
and glass, one window to the next, tugging 
up and down and to each side to find 
an opening, a passage wide,
the melting point of pandemonium.
Alone and warm inside the transformation 
of who I will become until I get it right.




M Madison
3 jan 2000
copyright © 2000