Sestina Attempt Take 2

I remember when you peeled back your ribs
& showed what was always missing
your skin unraveling like a blanket
never knowing a bruise
til i taught you how to breathe
even when you are lacking life

i remember when you told me the secret of life
could only be found in donated ribs
it escapes every time you breathe
it is the definition of what we are missing
we carry it around like a banana carries a bruise
exposed, enveloping our skin like a blanket

i remember the smell of my grandmother's blanket
it smelt like the beauty of a life
that never hid a bruise
it smelt like Adam's ribs
always resting in the wrong Eve, missing
never truly learning how to breathe

I remember when pain taught me how to breathe
when it squeezed my lungs full of smoke, blanket
my reflection and demanded that i realize that I was missing
life
i never noticed that my fake ribs
caused so much pain, now a healing bruise

i remember when i decided the only cure for a bruise
was numb, when inhaling agony was a s simple as breathe
when i dissected my ribs
and dissolved the blanket
that they called life
only to realize it was love that was missing

i can never remember when i was showed what was missing
only the pain of the bruise
only the lack in the life
and the struggle when i try to breathe
but i wear it like a blanket
wondering if it was my father who gave me these ribs

Do you remember the piece that's missing? The one that sounded like breathe?
The one that didn't bruise but held like a blanket?
the one that spelt life like God spelt ribs?

©, 2011, Tiffany "Spokenheart" Shack

Untitled

days like this look like addiction to me

they smell like answers we never know or secrets we keep

&& ur eyes have never looked greener

as corporate America tries to convince me my pockets must be leaner

if I dare to convince u of ur worth to me

but we both know what the power of money conceives

so.....I was thinking this father's day I would write

u a poem of all the words that kite

between us over the past decades

but then I realized it takes

alot more than a pen to translate for mutes

alot more than crushed trees to draw out the truth

we are dear voiceless beings blinded by chance

&& cursed with lame hands

wondering if at time it was ever more

than an exchange of money for sex behind closed doors

more than business that occurred on a motel room bed

dressed in cheap floral spreads

that reeked of heaven with price tags

that looked like the white lines hidden in cash

yes we wonder if life was lost or formed in that sweat

or if lips will continue to not be able to recall the regret

of not being able to forget

that we can’t leave everything behind on the trip

someone has to make use of the unclaimed baggage

we can’t all come wrapped in our neat little packages

&& no matter how vivid my imagination

you will never visit me in the narration

of the dad from Crooklyn with short bread & ice cream

with tall tales & bigger dreams

no, you will never be more than a session

of genes intertwined in domination and submission

we will always be grasping hands filled with space

while I dream conversations within which u will describe the taste

of cocaine and other men

or what it was like to be held so tightly by sin

did it remind you if visiting somewhere exotic like hell?

with a get out of jail

free card tucked neatly under the bills u negotiated as her worth

do you ever look at a condom and wonder what you may have birth

were you careful not to leave behind enough to search?

hoping black women would be smart enough to know dirt belongs under rugs or in closets

in pre frontal cortexes lodging

we are memories never meant to see flesh

&& u r a superhero at best

teaching me the value of invisibility

sometimes wishing I could teach others to see me

the way you do, not at all

or only when nostalgia stalls

you as you open your wallet to pay a bill

moments when life forces you to be still

&& wonder if money ever looks like more than dead men's faces

does it ever look like children that hold traces?

 of men they'll never meet

or like question marks that treat

them all too familiar like mutes

like blind pompous smirking clues

I even wonder if I sometimes catch ur scent in money

if our fingerprints are trapped in the same dollar bill, running

back and forth betwixt us daring us to make a connection

tempting me to start writing confessions

on every note that leaves my hand

Dear John letters bordering bills to the only man

I think would care not enough to read it

probably cursing some old man who would keep it

thinking his daughter was finally ready to forgive him

we are Morse code eyelids double taking at the living

wondering if that was us

or just

another dollar bill in emperor's clothing

you know, it’s kinda funny how u got me to loathing

my origin, always been a love-hate relationship with currency

&& honestly, I currently

hate it for being so obscure

for never holding the cure

for anything I ever saw others looking for in it

including the resolve to a story never finished

or maybe I should just accept it

a dollar bill is all I’ve ever have to represent

ur role in my existence

u were a man who met a woman without resistance

wooed with promises of nirvana && took a trip

then disappeared before she could slip

out of her trance

connect with land

&& reveal ur deepest secret

u left ur souvenir at the gift shop, && she decided to keep it

©,  2011, Tiffany Shack