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Aleah Sato
Aleah Sato is a marketing manager, writer and co-owner of Ricksticks Inc, a visual
communications firm in Toronto. She is the author of the recently released Badlands and the forthcoming
Stillborn Wilderness (Pooka Press 2007). Her work has appeared in Nthposition, Adirondack Review, Wicked Alice, Blue Fifth Review
and Eclectica.
To dawn
This means letting go.
Like children
swinging into the blue,
we must trust
that some things
are not worth holding.
The morning opens
to kiss the aches
and balm wounds.
Sundays are unforgiving.
A good kite floats higher
than the rest.
A bee falls to subtle honey.
Rain dances on thirsty land.
If I knew what will come,
would I stop this running?
Would I take it in,
sleep with it
between us
like the baby
we will not bring forth.
Tenant
You can light the match
under the nightlight.
The note's been scribbled.
The dog's shut out in the cold.
Behind me there are miles,
sheets twisted
into origami swans,
the sound of footsteps.
Nobody saves grace today
with its minutes bleeding out
onto a prairie highway.
Let's get the past
behind us now. The ocean
swallows ships.
The desert winds beat
down the adobe.
And I have
come to reside
on this orphaned frontier
you call home.
Her poison apple
don't let me slip
the noose - lift me into the rafters
of your fury. hang my desire
for you by your desire for me.
hold it, the burden of tongues,
by its pink
aftertaste. don't let me
fall away from reach.
let me sleep
curled in the ceiling fan
that cools
your lover's touch.
let me eat
from her palm your raw
salted heart -
my blood pulse
is your blood pulse.
today, don't let me
leave with the mountain mist.
let me crave you
like a powdered debutante
for her jewels.
let me be rocked upon
this earth
by the troubled beat
of minutes. let me
recite the words
you speak to women.
don't let me be
gone.
come
take this bite
of memory madness.
marriage organism
this is the mouth that would not open
to the words and the kiss
that would have broken your rib
in five places. this is the rib cage
that houses your life organs:
the turtle shell,
the breath revival,
the wisdom cradle. these
are the lips that dared not part
to my accusations. these are hands
that do good and evil - they are my enemy
lines. this is the bruise
spreading like poison across my mind,
the un-doer, the duress
mistress creating many alibis.
this is your skin, your teeth.
this is the broken elbow,
the one that never healed. these are the tips
of nipples brimming with nothing.
in your chest, there's the vena cava.
this is your life and mine,
fluttering in this net of ours
for a season. this net
could be the world. this net could
be nothing but gossamer.
The sculptor
one day you will appear
holding the veils of women
you've undressed,
who've undressed
for you,
the son you would not hold
bared flesh:
a newborn's
howling vision –
the son you saw
jutting fist against canyon,
an endless echo
of need -
an apparition
one day
you will regret
the man
you could not carve
out of this stone
the archaeologist
your two eyes like jaguars
your two hands like bat wings
you let go
over canyons and gin stills
over museums
with the bones
of the dead you love
the curled primates
the prehistoric blind
fish - those rocks
like women
who've fallen
in your path
daughters
into queens
of snowy lands
of cicadas
and feathers
you come to bend
us
like a question
us
like blurred geography
on burning sand
this hollow
sarcophagus
this broken sundial
you surround yourself
with the smoke
of Amarillo
postcards mailed to me
the cryptic scrawl
of the already dead
copyright © Aleah Sato
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