words

she moves through the night
like a serpent slender and rapid,
wild and writhing,
she is so thin you can feel her nerves
through her shirt.

she smells of ransom and she moves constantly,
her spine dances up and down her back like a river
and she does not want that feeling to stop,
keep moving, keep dancing,
she snaps her jaws at the onset of morning.

her blood contains within it
the secret carried swiftly in the current,
raw and clear, overtaking every cell
and making it slave to this protocol,
burning down pain and replacing it
with wonder, a prism of possibility
and warmth like god.

she clutches her skirt through bony fingers
and is dancing, dancing the hours down
to where this moment is a memory
and must be sought after and trapped
and bottled and preserved
by whatever means necessary,
by fire or murder or treason,
anything to get this feeling
back in her soul
and if you broke open her bones
you would find poison in the marrow,
singing to you like sirens with morphine breath
waiting for the dance to begin
and if you let them
they would take you and you would never return.

she is danger in purest form,
she plows on through the darkness
and takes you with her and you feel fear
as she breaks law and covenant
dragging behind her karma and regret,
she makes the heart go criminal
and as she vanishes so too does the night
and you are grateful to be free
of this unreasonable and unreckonable creature.

-S.C. Martinez