Rochelle Owens

You are sitting down

to a late lunch

in my castle on a hill

 

while a jazz trio plays

 

then suddenly

a chemical reaction

takes place —

 

and you smell

the scent of roses and feel

my hair growing

 

on every part of your skin

 

but not the palms

of my hands or the soles

of your feet 

 

Day One

 

I am standing

in front of a group of musicians 

controlling

 

the speed of sound

 

then suddenly

a chemical reaction

takes place —

 

saliva pools behind

your teeth  sinuous the rhythms

under my skin 

 

your lips move

 

audible   inaudible

and I begin to chant a secret

tribal language

 

Day Two                                                                                               2

 

In a triangle of haze

and smoke I am following

a marching band

 

appear and disappear

 

then suddenly

a chemical reaction

takes place —

 

spirals of veins pulsate  

nerves and tendons drink color

sight   smell   taste

 

pale and red your lips

 

my tongue protrudes

from your mouth and I taste

the rain

 

Day Three

 

You are hanging

upside down and side to side

I swing

 

earth   air   fire   water

 

then suddenly

a chemical reaction

takes place —

 

I am a barley plant

cut down   dead white the barley

plant cut down

 

you are a pouched mammal

 

attached to a nipple 

mother and father crawled

onto the land

 

Day Four                                                                                             3

 

I am flapping

my right hand and your left

hand is balled into a fist

 

the universe contracts   e x p a n d s  

 

then suddenly

a chemical reaction

takes place —

 

the smell of saffron

and lilac   morning to evening

evening to morning 

 

milk of the mother misery

 

milk of the father terror

vigilant the babe   sucking   carnal/

spiritual

 

Day Five

 

Through the gaps

of my fingers vibrating subatomic

particles blink in and out 

 

vertical/horizontal

 

then suddenly

a chemical reaction

takes place —

 

a breast vein

as thick as a finger   amorous

the greedy seed

 

every day bears the data

 

grain   grape   bread

and wine   your skeletal frame

the limbs spreading apart

 

Day Six                                                                                                     4

 

Behind you

a black line appears   disappears

a latent image

 

a wall of brown dust

 

then suddenly

a chemical reaction

takes place —

 

a black line curved

like an embrace   lay your hand

feel the bones

 

under my skin

 

your sculpted pelvis 

vertical/horizontal   corkscrews

of white smoke

 

Day Seven

 

In the twenty-first century

the here-and-now   in the zone

diverging

 

from a course of events 

 

then suddenly

a chemical reaction takes

place —

 

a metallic taste on

my tongue   I am an old

woman

 

sipping black tea

 

you are a little boy

sitting cross-legged under

a dead blue glow