Life as a Volt
I dreamed last night of darkness.
It was sweet like wine on a table
next to a vase of love notes.
I wake up in this eccentric,
ecstatic light bulb
wishing I could feel the cold.
I live in a blacklight.
It's so bright in here,
but out there it is pitch black
except for tennis shoes and ballgowns,
glowing like angels.
I ask my mother if I can go out in it
and play.
She tells me if I do I'll destroy everything
with my eyes.
Best leave the shimmering darkness to those
who know it.
I want to dance too,
and know what it means to be a real wallflower-
a beautiful thing that grows against the wall-
not inside of it,
being born anew constantly
like a drop of blood returning to the heart.
I want to feel excitement,
live on the edge of death.
She tells me my life is better.
I am excitement,
and I never die.
Self Sufficiency
I could dance if I really wanted to,
but I don't.
I like planting rose bushes all around me instead.
They are aesthetically stunning,
marvelous for security,
and shocking for how high and thick they grow.
I used to flourish in the loud and the dense,
but now I grow slowly in the dark and the wet,
and wonder if I should wish for deserts.
I always order desert on dates.
Everyone wants to find an oasis,
but no one wants to be one.
The truth is,
any oasis will tell you,
that lovesick travelers will take everything
they need from you,
decimate everything you had that made you a paradise,
and then leave.
The truth is that humans being human beings,
they want the desert.
It proves something to them.
They are sufficient.
They need nothing.
No one else believes them or cares.
Sand and wind blast everyone's wrapping off,
and the heat will eat them,
but each devoured human being in the empty, dark, caverns
of alone and dying will know that they alone
were enough to be consumed.
Tepid Compromise
I'm dying in this dream of mauve
that is covering crazy.
Soon I won't be able to see new
rising over the world each day.
Everyone is yelling mauve! Mauve!
They all stink like forests without trees.
I detest them the way a butterfly loathes a locust.
Mauve! Mauve!
Maybe periwinkle!
This was shouted from those
who are less bold in their demands
for two toned indecisiveness,
unable to decide not to decide.
If an egregious compromise
must be made between Should and the people,
I hope Should gives them periwinkle.
It would serve them right to destroy themselves
a little more by request.
And periwinkle is light enough that I could at least
barely see new and beyond it to always.
The Process of Revision
Revising voices is an arduous process.
I have to dub in kisses
where they used to say you.
I love to revise my professor's voice.
He has no idea he is talking about
smiling wishes in the language of God.
I tell him I can't see him again because
each time I do I know it should be the last time
and that this instinct is lightening in my throat.
Revision.
I told him to slide his hand higher,
and slip his fingers in.
I only speak magic when one person is listening with
their tongue.
I am revising my own voice and
I am revising the voice at the end of this tunnel
between me and the light.
It stands over the dark and graves,
stradling them and singing of candles
and two battles of will.
I've never been lured by the voice of a new house.
It is only when I listen to the ocean
that I never revise it.
Its voice rolls to shore from distance
in the dark,
telling me moonlight
and no matter how much loss I bleed,
it will always be there for me to talk to.
Lisa Minner
