invocation

The empty bed girl drinks from the thick
mouth of a water jug, its fired clay
coils encircling a round belly
bottom.  The raku skin blushes red
against her hands.
She remembers a few earthquake

lovers.  Most saved their earthquake
tricks for women without fury or thick
hips.  Passion fell to wasp waists, doll hands.
Next time, she would form a lover from clay,
a woman with an earthen face and red
berry-stained lips.  She would fashion the belly

from moss, from earth.  It would be a good belly:
pleasing to the touch.  Then: a flask of earthquake
energy for the fingertips.  A throaty voice full of red-
as-fire fervor.  She would weave strands of thick
hair from onyx and moonstone.  For the clay
woman, calloused hands,

sturdy and strong.  The girl envisioned those hands
traveling from clay hips to a soft belly;
a light touch, a sigh, a smile.  In clay,
in the promise of earth, stillness with earthquake
tremors.  She mirrors the woman’s thick
hips after her own, gives her a red-

olent scent born of five directions, a candy-red
mouth for kissing.  Empty bed girl’s hands
reach for her water jug; she drinks the thickness
of possibility.  She leaves bad lovers in the belly
of the ocean.  Let their earthquakes
disrupt a different mouth.  Her clay

woman is daughter to the universe.  Let clay
discover the mystery that lives in the girl’s red
heart.  The sea storms in earthquake
vengeance while she waits for hands
that match her own.  She trembles from crown to belly
as she waits for the sweetness.  The air is thick.

Tension causes earthquakes, chaos within the clay.
The lover, vibrant and thick, sees the girl on sheets, soft and red.
Sturdy and strong hands caress the soft landscape of belly.