Less Than Human

You are not taken by me: You are taken by the shadows and shapes there. Sharp collarbones, acute angles when knees bend, shin to thigh: Movement in the night, soft sighs, I am wisp-of-smoke, wisp-of-woman, neither living nor dead, your head Cradled to my breasts, my eyes soft there. I am your mother, your worship, your hellhound, your whore: Everything to you, I am, but I am not me. You see the curve below the protuberance of hip, the pink softness of these lips, Strangled under weighted red hair: “Who are you?” The moon arches her slivered arrows from the quiver of night, Impaled by the furious darkness you seduce a sea creature, Claim my skin as amphetamine, See one hundred faces of people from ancient cultures and places And each one you see is them, is not me, and: Why should it matter? Do I embody primal identity?