When you look at me
do you see crafty or something more
leviathan?
I swear my veins aren’t filled with sand,
blood does not become me.
One spark of my wit could lift
a cart of gold, my hair
hangs opium,
and I need the battlefield—
how can I explain?
Listen. I am weaving a rug of sunsets
whose fibers won’t ever
split. My soldier looked so soft
in the mud.
They say I am too beautiful to be touched.
My fingers touch needles
and bleed.
Thus, I am eruption, and afterwards,
ash descending, a daylight,
a haze, floating.
I am the one mothers pray to.
Kate Martin Rowe’s poems have appeared in The Beloit Poetry Journal, California Quarterly, Eclipse and the online journals Chaparral and Prick of the Spindle among others. She teaches composition at LA City College and Glendale Community College and lives in Eagle Rock with her husband and two very lazy cats.