The storm and the earthquake have no mind-

i.

On occasion she will linger
to claw a shell from a tabby wall,
momento of decay skittering in her dusky palm,
down curves of shaded loam where sand and moisture
cling to her feet in green and gray arabesques.

Magdalene died in someone's memory.

Desiring no lover,
save the howling of gulls
and the touch of tide
and scent of forest ponds,
she comes by closing portals
with eyes of broiled orange skin;
hair of musky potpourri rattling in every marsh wind,
stumbling to the waves.

On a shore like this a saint could suffer
and a child could be ignored.
She strips herself of all her mindings,
pushing self into
the brine.

Magdalene laughs through dark slate waters
and returns without collected shells.
Now her hair is
auburn, stranded with flecks of quartz.
And her eyes,
beyond the orange,
if you look, there is lightning.

ii.

Sabina paces the tiled bathroom,
zlocking on blue eyes, common recession,
on hair wet from showers.

She licks a canine in her reflection,
template of her passion's form,
holding tip with tongue
in hope of
blood.

Sabina reincarnates in every embrace.

Men, for her, are laughter
are viscous like her charms,
intoxicants for seconds,
then gone like the toll through echo through streets.

Sabina breathes deeply
of dying orchids and paperwhites
and consequence and probability.
She releases liquid oxygen,
the venom of irrationality,
solvent of bonds.

iii.

Armand is undeveloped. A figure
by a column in a crowded room,
a brow in candlelight and a glint in sun.
Hover. Like scent,
his omnipresence is startling
in introduction.
Is wondrous in simplicity.

Armand justifies the fear of darkness in children.

His collarbone and inner wrist are golden,
painted with lip-marks
like incisions from a sculptor's knife.
Clothing is transparent on his frame,
body aching through fabrics
with voicings of promised
tension.

Armand knows only the torrent of
denial's unburdening.
His mind lingers on the alcohol and electricity
of blood's graveled channel.

iv.

With ruins beside marsh roads,
and the patterns of Spanish moss in the wind;
with the drip of using and the dry of
leavings and the ways of women's escape;
with the patterns of sweat and the
twitchings of implied pain;
I have let them wake me like a throoming in the night.