Marguerite

It was hard, she says, needles
biting bone. All summer I wore sandals;
the skin, a red lace sock. A gecko clings
to her ankle, flicks his tongue up her pink shin.
Bent koi fin her throat as if the sweep of tail
through curled water could quench parched days.
A mellifleur cloak hides her fat shoulders.
One gray winter, she says, gold freesia
blossomed up my thighs. She strokes
the parrot who cocks his head on her breast.

Patrice

This year Mother plans summer inside a castle
on a stone hill in France. Patrice lists things
to take: shoes and lipstick, a guide to saints and shops,
a beaded evening bag, a book of flash. A man waits
in a sterile room in the village. His head bends close;
his breath stirs the hair on her nape. He strokes
his canvas, pulls wrinkles flat, and carves
until he finds her Lalique heart in bone and gold.
When she leaves, nine cicadae wheel under linen.
Lizard ripples welt her ribs as she drinks tea with Mother.
The stud in her left nipple slides under silk.

Ruth

She names her sins with her tattoos—
through the INRI tattooed on her breast,
a squat god thrusts the thorns that nail
Jesus to her chest. In light, ink is chasuble
and lappet. Mary jostles cow and manger,
elbows a sacred heart aside. During day,
Ruth sits on a bench in the park
and cries Away! Away! like a leper rattling
a clapper. She picks through Mission bins
searching for a missing shoe.
After dusk, the letters inch apart.
Darkness slips through bone and sinew.
At night, she struts sidewalks
in leather boots and a fox skin jacket.

Vyvyn

Snowflake, Arizona: hearts carved on her hand,
starred knuckles, a boyfriend's name on each calf.
New York: she fingers the wing
which feathers her arm like a sepia sleeve.
Every night she works graveyard
and slips asleep just as the pigeons wake.
She dreams of flying.
San Francisco: a cross moves
with every breath. I believe this,
she says, pressing Jesus deeper.
Hawaii: black bands and Ouroborous lock
under a skull plucked from dreams on Molokai.
I met a man with a bar code
on his back. He said it meant he was for sale.
Tourists avoid her outstretched hand;
skirt the jitter of her cup.
Takapuna: She dreams
a saffron snake coils at her temples
and its shed skin pools at her feet.

Annamarie

She slips off her gown and waits for the doctor at Saint-Pothin.
A man needled lines into her, carved color straight
from spring's Parisienne, left himself staring out of her back
and riding the ridge of her pubis: Try it, he cut
in Germanic script. She worked the cribs of Tangiers
and got tips. She blows smoke rings at the nurse
and shimmies to make the blue women dance.
A pimp smokes a cigarette between spine and side.
Psoriasis rusts on her chest, drowns the sparrow
on her shoulder. See, she says, points to her neck
where a butterfly shakes loose from its cocoon: papillion!

Carol Yocom