like doves

fluttering

hidden wings edged with uncertain veins

making their presence known in lantern light

as she pours tea into a tiny cup

her fingers brush against the back of my hand

she lingers

her skin like satin

and I am so enamored with how she feigns demure delicacy

how swiftly she has learned

how to ask for everything

with only her eyes

spider lashes fanning shadow songs across her ivory cheeks

the sweetness of her character steeped in the sugary nectar of the tea she

brings

to the table with such care

She is amazing

a goddess with ink eyes reflecting every lit surface

drenched gold worlds

resplendent in liquid dark irises

tiny and graceful in every curve and movement

she carries the weight of a solid thing broken many

many times

beneath men who thought no further of her then her porcelain skin

A western woman would have shattered long ago

but she Orient jade

born of brilliant colors and claw ribbons

swiftly tilting kaleidoscopes

madness

brilliance

she is a prismatic rush of a thousand hummingbirds

pulsing with an electric rush

on every corner

every turn of hip into the shadows

Each Friday night we take the train to Chinatown

for smooth

summer walkabouts

and I transcend the fairy tale of wife and mother sparks

and fold into a tapestry of Asiatic clusters upon entering this dragon place

emblazoned with the multidimensional colors of flame

alive with the woman who always looks at me for very long

and very deeply

from beneath

her shadow lashes

Once

she touched the curve of my cheeks

traced my brow

shivering, she whispered

‘You’ve Japanese blood.”

and I smiled against her slender fingertips

and told her a neatly wrapped version of Grandfather Irita

from Okinawa

and how on earth he ended up in Rumania

married to a woman dusky and grand and descended from the wolf

people who’d leave

her bite marks along his neck and the inside of his wrists

whenever grandfather prepared to travel

told her how grandmother would laugh

and how it was the sound of a tiny fountain

water against pebbles

a heron taking flight

For a year we go

we go to the dragon place of the princess

and for a year she flits across my skin with the wing whispers of butterflies

catches me behind the golden embroidered curtains

captivates me with eyes midnight blue and black;

then one sultry summer eve she slips a tiny fortune cookie slip of paper

between my breasts

and scandalized delicious

I smile

enchanted deep into the belly

Husband finds the slip of paper in my compact

shade: ivory silk

he growls like a big, angry bear

and for the first time in my upright world I see man for brute and

ridiculous beast

and my mouth spits meanies like never before, asking,

‘And what the hell were you doing in my makeup, anyway?”

and he paints stars across my eyes

so that my lids swell up like blueberries

and my little jaw splinters underneath his big

big hands

and it intrigues me that the tears are born of pain

as is the laughter rolling out with the flow of blood from my mouth

There is something very pure and crystal water beautiful

hummingbird kiss

and midnight blues and starlight glaze

and sunbeam enchantment that blooms between women

out of a blossom of shared ribs and recognition

beyond primal and base things from a man’s hard hips and harder needs

The Eve’s of the world ride a sensual storm

an aesthetic curve of breeze

eating fruit and laughing beneath a tree

playing fetch with the serpent

who is become of a sudden playful and disinclined to cause any sort

of spiritual upheaval

and instead suns his belly beneath the sun

curled up in our lap

Every Friday night I go to Chinatown

the man with big

hard hands

a memory;

the woman with satin skin

she comes and sits with me when everyone has gone

and we talk about fairy tales

and politics

and rain showers

our children and our own childhoods

we stroll

her little hand in mine

we are both tiny

but with a presence that encapsulates our stride in golden globes of honey

and light

and everyone is smoke and dust

and we are the only Eve’s left to ride the world

This is what we do

this is all we do

hold hands

and talk and talk

and listen

this is what it is to be in love with a woman

to find your Eve rib has a pair

beneath another woman’s breast;

the fortune cookie slip of wisdom had whispered

‘you will find true love’

copyright:2008victoriaseleneskyedeme/publishamerica