dressing for dinner

i touch perfume to my wrists
my throat, the nape of my neck
and dream of your lips

brushing o so lightly behind my ear

as you breathe me in

i braid my hair 
and think of loosening it
to flow over you,

teasing your nipples into peaks,

tangling round the base of the fountain

when i sip

i put on make up
and imagine taking it off
to come to you
as new as morning,
don my loveliest dress
and envision you pushing it up
above my waist
while i wrap my legs around you
and pull you in

i feel your hands 
and your lips
along all my neural pathways
lighting me up
like a starry sky

i shall wear diamonds tonight

i sold your car today

                                                               
                                                                              Janine Pommy Vega 1942-2010
as i slough off another piece of you
i still sometimes wear your skin
see through your eyes
walk journeys my legs have never traveled
on the wings of your tales
deep in the jungles, high in rock-strewn wildernesses tapping
into the rhythms and bowels of the fertile Mother
her vast wastelands throb of waterfall and avalanche
clear purity of uncharted Nowhere
Amazon basin to Sagamatha’s unconquered heights
too hungry for words
and words are all existence, no digital flatness                                          
words are flesh and winds have teeth
to tear from you everything familiar
-- which was the point –

where are the Loves? the forgotten children?
placentas of the Word giving birth to meaning
future artisans molding the clay of our belonging
from the flesh of our words

possessions once so dear to you
only dear to me now because of you
and every hour every day a little more
another bit
floats out of reach
your face, the feel of your skin against mine
found now mostly in dreams
sometimes all i want to do is sleep
have you come again to fill my days and nights
with the small pains and pleasures that we were
and know for once the essence of you
so deeply hidden in the Wanting
life attachments and detachments wrestled screaming
to earth in marching meditations
      climbing
            reaching
for a heaven unattainable until the ashes spread
and sink again into the body of the Mother
you always sought
offered in a blinding jewel to the chariot of the dawn

i ache with the loss of you
whose heart was never mine
whose spirit dodged and danced among the aromatic green
the Orinoco fronds and heavy air so wet and fragrant
you could drink it
who scaled unnumbered heights
stone fingertips piercing through the bellies of clouds
making no obeisance to the sky
their craggy fingers grasping Light
a scissor slicing deep into the vitals
hot nutrients for those seeds
those words
that flesh

i lost another piece of you today
but still i sometimes wear your skin
see through your eyes
taste your words in my mouth
and kiss them forward



© 2013 pamela twining