Falling In Raiment

I bring you poems; a parade of excellent uncomfortable feelings, some vicious.

You see that I point to constellations in the night sky.

Clever Cassiopeia, holding her mirror, gazing upon herself,

I specifically direct your eyes to her.

Vain and boastful, combing her long locks, daring to say she is more lovely

than Nereid sea nymphs, such hubris by a mortal could not go unpunished, 

and, so, she is sentenced, 

to sentences.

I send you a poem in the form of sea monster to ravage your coast,

and as much as you would like to chain your daughter, Andromeda, to the rocks,

the famous rescue will occur, and you will remain only to look at your own reflection,

read the lines on your face, and think about what you have done.

You, in indignity, on the celestial fairground, my carnival barkers hollering

all around you. You, hanging upside down, in the sky, like a diver,

your feet in the air, looking like you will fall out of my poem,

face contorted in agony, stretching out your hands, bewailing, abandoned. 

Andromeda, unjustly atoning for your sins, while you hold your robe and fuss with your hair,

You are a folding door, a screen, a breast, a stained hand, a knee

and one last erratic, variable star given to occasional outbursts of brightness, 

with no official name. 

So, you see, while I agree that my poems are constellations,

I am also outfitting you with wild costumes, as you sit reading.

I am placing pearls around your neck, strange, feathered millinery upon your head,

I am capable, fashionable. I flatter you. Read this, feel ten pounds heavier.

Next you know, you are wearing a baleen corset and harlequin tights,

under a shabby overcoat. You look down and recognize yourself.

You feel grandiose and embarrassed, delighted and very much like a child.

Very much like an old woman in a saliva scented, leopard print jacket. Queen.