Sub-rosa

You're very private and it would be wrong
to say your name in this poem.

When we meet, it is most often
just the two of us.

I find you on the couch.
We drink tea.

We sift and wade, converse. I step gingerly
beside our conversation, watching myself.

Then we go upstairs and call the stars
down, first one at a time,

then whole constellations,
two worlds, mixing their natures.

Everything else that I do I've had to learn from scratch.

“i”

A sadist entered the poem
and commanded that it be about him.

I am not sure how
I could fit you in.

I'll take care of that! He whispered,
and pulled out his poem-dagger

all engraved with the history of sadists
going back to the first little poem

with tongue, ears, eyes and genitals removed.

Sally says, never cower before a sadist
and pray, pray that he writes his own poem.

Sally Lee Stewart