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literary journals,
dust on my hands
as i read of power
and a common
language that trips
on my tongue like
a billy goat. except
where's the monster
in all of this?

hiding in between the
outstretched arms of
a woman with her
lips painted red, her
voice slinking up to
the ceiling and out
of the playhouse. a
red lipped boy raises
his voice in conjunction.

the english rose of her
wanders in between the
star's sanctioned,
pink-cheeked face and
her working hands.

loy would have something
to say about this,
she with her movie star
name and the sibilant
seductively sexual words
of the profane marriage bed
where lovers groaned even
as the wood moaned in protest.

what is a common language?
the dead woman speaks in elliptic
phrases where punctuation is
merely a way to communicate
unconsciously. the live woman
writes of a common language
free of dead, white males.

formulate a new language, torn
betwen two women, one live
and breathing, the other
hidden between the pages
of a man ray photography
book, her teeth flashing.

how to choose?