she takes to collecting toys: the sharp crack & hiss of black leather sticks, the gilded cold of metals shine---runs her fingers up & down their lengths, inhales their heady scents, thrashes wildly at any who stray too near-
in the shadows she watches freak girls & drag queens playing in the summer fog, underground, in deep winding caverns - round smooth girls, powdered & painted, long pale limbs sheathed in black, cloaked in lace & velvet , wine casks, corks damp, slightly swollen, clusters of dark blueberries, blood-bruised petals, dark-painted lips shining in the night, kohl-blackened lids draping moon-lit eyes, casting shiny dripping stares -drunk on one's knees with head bared- in the labyrinth tunnels beneath the courtyards of the city she dreams of them opening their cloaks to her, black leaves of velvet, unfolding, their incense rising, penetrating her skin, drawing away the liquid sea, pressing close---
in her dreams, she opens to the half-naked fiends who shroud her walls, feels their breathing quicken- in every dream she tears at her coverings, more appear beneath- she dreams of colors: salmon, magenta, deep rose, purple, red---she tears & tears frantically- once bared, she throws the flesh to strangers - lips apart, voice a low husk, deliriously calling out for eyes, fingers, pressure- in her frenzy she falls against them, the taste & breath of their tongues like German wines- their lips hover over the mad throbbing - breath soothing against the taut skin of her neck- gazing at them her own eyes look back at her - wide child amazement, dancing a dawn dance through ice, melting all over the floors, losing herself-
wrapped in ragged black snow-coats, in the labyrinth tunnels beneath the courtyards of the city, the secret catacombs beneath the shadowed rooms of churches, copper-sewn pockets heavy with long dark-glassed casks, they look for old black wine - "lautreamont" - like those glass-frosted bottles in her grandmothers cellar, their goblets icy with black wine stirred with rusty ankhs –
they leave wakes of dead flowers trailing their steps, to find their way back- fairy tale children, witch-girls - they step soft through the nightmist, beneath rotting withered elms in the dreary churchyard- they dance over the buried fathers- the stone gardens beckon- they glisten naked between the wet gravestones-
twisted moonlit limbs of black lace sliding through Spanish moss as they dance on the silky tombs, writhe & laugh soft in wet grass, rub damp grey dust into their faces, shine their bright eyes up to the skies & pray pray pray for endless night, for eternal dark wet graveyards beneath the moon-
lost children of the forest they play hansel & grettle - fill their dress aprons with pale stones, thread-bare cotton, pock-marked with the stains of wet-black pebbles- they hide in the sagging armpits of rotting elms, throw gingerbread down to the scrawing blackbirds below in the green & sing their songs of darkness & children's sadness –
"witchmotherlover love me touch me sleep with me in this dark dark wood" they fall before the witches form, offer eggs & fish, offer their limbs, themselves-
furious ravens swoop out of the black, dive down for their necks with high-pitched mocking jeers-