Fugue in F-Major, Ending in a Sonnet

I know it's cliche to have a thing for musicians
But let me just say...I have a thing for musicians.
Cause, you know, someone puts their mouth just right on a reed
It makes sense, that's a mouth that knows what you need
Yeah, give me a woman who plays flute or oboe
Cause she knows how to puff up her cheeks and blow
And you cannot underestimate the importance of rhythm
Your own metronome going to tick tick tick'em
It takes patience and attention to know
When it's time to kick it up and time to decrescendo
Because let's be honest, ladies: timing is everything
Ain't nothin' offbeat gonna make your bell ring
And if you want a love to produce a volcano
Set me up with a friend who plays the piano
It's a quick damn trip from sonata to bed
I think Tori Amos put it best when she said:
The piano is a passionate instrument... a sensual instrument, and, um,  you can hide men in it
... So there's that
You want to seduce me? Start in Bflat
Stretch out those hands, and honey you are golden
Cause nothing works faster than Asharp to F7
It's about running your fingers over the right keys
That's pretty much all it takes to make me week in the knees
Cause there's something beautiful, both aural and visual
About playing percussion on my favorite triangle
And I promise when I say this, I'm not trying to be porn-y
But who can resist when a woman gets French horn-y
And oh, heaven help me, if she's got a harp to pluck
Those fingers moving so fast, I just wanna...have a conversation with her
And the cello, sweet Lord, do I even have to say it?
It's shaped like a woman and you gotta open your legs to play it
Oh and one more, I realize it's common
But there's this woman that I have my eye on
And I, so often, wish that I could
Be made of only strings and wood
And have her hands begin their trek
Pressed lightly at my arching neck
And make a slow but steady trail
By working down my major scale
So stringed melodic I would croon
And then my eyes to her eyes tune
That nothing could be so easy
For a bright minstrel, such as she
To wrap her arms around my hips
And strum me with her fingertips
And I would find it bliss by far
To be but used as her guitar

Feast of St. Erzulia

Let the wind carry this sound up and far,
From my lungs and yours, the yes
Of bees' wings thrumming
And orchids trumpeting delirious with color

You were never meant for oubliettes
Or fainting couches, but for dancing
In wide places (how you shine, flossy thing!)

And free, now you are
From the dread of needles and prongs
And grave-faced doctors,
Let us chew up our orders and
Steal napkin weights, and try all manner of magic,
And in the beats of the pounding bass, know
We were made for the swell

Will

I leave you the cottage,
the book about fungi, and the broom.
The goat with her ruthless teeth
will belong to you also.
I leave you better sense than your mother had,
the deck of cards, the herb garden,
the tea kettle and cups,
and the rabble of people who do not like witches,
but who will brave the brambles
hoping you have a remedy
hidden somewhere, maybe under your shoe,
in your cupboard, or in the escargatoire in the root cellar.
Which reminds me, I leave you, too,
the cupboard and the escargatoire.
And the root cellar.
Yours the roughened hands and the logolepsy.
Yours the prescient dreams, the beeswax candles,
and the will to deliver, no matter the hour,
whatever must come bleeding and squalling into this world.

Don't forget to feed the goat.

Selkie's Girl

Mam used to tread on seashells in our house, with feet that
never quite fit her. Only later would I see how she was meant to move.

Once I woke in the small hours and felt her gone. Peering
across the strand, I saw her kneel by the waterline. She drew clawfuls
of sand and flung them out, baying and barking
from her throat. The moon made an oil slick
of her skin, a wildness she could not give me. 

She wept when I asked her to teach me
to swim. "Little thief," she said, "Don't you know
that seashells are bones?" I knew, but I wanted
her to cast me in skin. I wanted my hair to knot
like hers, like seaweed. I wanted my body to look
like hers, the roundness of her womanself,
the damp and furry places. "Foolish child," you will say
and you will not be wrong, for I was the thief
whose love trapped her here, the thief that freed her, too.
I could not look like her if I tried. In hungrier times, I make
the same moaning sounds, barking like questions she will not answer. 

Lately I feel the stirring of wildness
Mam left behind. You will tell me, and you will not be wrong,
to find the seed of that wildness and seal
it in. But if I cannot go back to the sea
as she did, I will spend the rest of my life learning how.