if she truly believed that a woman’s
words can kill a man
why wasn’t she more careful?
like the alarm that promises July’s radiance
but only delivers the narrow eyes of the blinds
searching through a shackled greyness
her moans often sound an empty dawn.
someone said
that the true test of a man
is the woman he loves…
she weeps this proverb
into the pillow that she hugs
as they make love facing her favorite painting
of an African woman carrying her manchild
on her back as she stands in the middle of a village
laughing with another woman.
he often rests his head upon that same pillow
struggling before he’s able to sleep
as he tries to recreate the same old dream:
that her old lovers were conquered in the moaning…
The Muse Minefield 