Cruel Radiance
by Nevada Kerr

It's funny how small and hard I feel
I can't fit into your moth eaten clothes
Your hair falls symmetrically
And you cast a cruel radiance in the dark

If only I refused to age
Learned to shed the race I own
I could skim along the surface of a brittle rose
Breaking fingers, burning toes

I watch you on the crowded trains
Your pounded soul in a pressed suit
The crooked smile tattooed on your back
A streak of fleeting misbehavior
Leaving an enduring shame on your white skin

We walk past each other
In the market of desire
I notice the overpriced fruits
You carry in your heart
Organic toxic waste
Absorbing lightning through it's roots

You fill the air with a spray of flames
Spilling gold teeth and candied skin peels
The bark of fear, the rinds of love
Beckon insect ashes from glacial caves
Dispatching a tidy radioactivity over your rented house

I am jolted awake by your clean infections
Your silent commands to obey the ordinary
You have made a religion of mediocrity
Your desert harvests and thrifty cemetery haggling
Bring battlefields of the newly dead to life

We hardly notice each other in the morning
Coffeehouse rituals that punctuate the tasks of slaves
In the evening the night clubbers churn
Stirring the dormant remains of a cruel radiance
Burned in the name of desire

Written by © Nevada Kerr
6th September 2001.