My mother once told me to be sure
my coming was a sharp offense.
To drink and live what have destroyed some men.
She says, “We died a hundred times,
ate thunder and tasted the rain,
drawn down the moon
and called the sun by name.”
I kneeled at her waist as she anointed me.
She sang for the trees to awake,
to let them follow me to you and
let their branches sway like my hips
and chase your coloured phantom on the air.
She had said, once I found you
to be all woman
of flesh
and blood,
and mystery.
Felineisms 