the torches spin black about her         her shadows
casting

tattoos on her burning face

the god's words crawling over her skin                  the names of famous men
dying blackly

scars in the surface of the story

she has always known or told or been torn by                  the rip of a god's zipper
splitting her into

wounds that bury inside and articulate

each roaring door to the future opens her into death                  a beehive dome
entering seals her over

scabs of porous stone and stories and darkness

there is blank and ink spills in shard-patterns as her voice breaks         the god's seals
healing each by speaking it

piercing women's cries with sound, her sudden wire of words

each roar bends in the lock and snaps her out of or into         this place outside herself
exploding from the underside

scabs scratched like words into shameless stone

she has always & she has forever & they are nothing         the sudden change of wind
shipping her off

wounds nothing she is always nothing

the god's words saying you will die are death         a prophecy etched in acid
bleeding fire

scars patterns in onlookers' eyes 

the torches spin red truth from         burnt light
fretting

tattoos that rise like tombs.