For Gabriel Don on her Birthday

What do you gift a girl with the eyes of she that has seen the world, surely more than just a ring
What is that potion thing that makes the heart sing, amour and Absinthe, I dare you drink a glass full
She courts the wind in a summer dress, pales dark corners with her face, fiery she you lovely thing

Walk these city streets with me, undo the underworld, blood and paint smeared on graffiti walls
Alarming, how the under dogs dream when she comes a waltzing with her Lower Eastside Artourage
The nest of them fluttering within dungeon of subway cars coming to stops emerging into light

Lifting like abracadabra, ghost of Christina in a community garden, it’s in the way she sidesteps
Sidesteps the sad men with blue guitars and tambourines, wailing while they swig bottles of booze
Burning smoke into them, smoke from refrigerated birds, blind ass and meat, of this we shall eat

We know torture as we surrender to this our serenade, she is wisdom at heart, lady of the la la leaves
They call to her, falling around her body, she is Georgia O’ of NYC, young and yet saddened by the days
Memory of Arabic women under siege, mothers of tomorrow penning poems of future melancholia

Saudi Arabia, oh dear Theresa of the teaching nuns undo your hijab, show your face, it is a fine face
Fair and your auburn hair, what artist wouldn’t want to demonstrate with splendor, his talent
Paint you in many ways, complement the many reasons, seasons you continuously inspire

With words, the cannon of them bursting onto empty pages, what flowers will do for a statue
Give glory to life, heave kerosene onto fire, drop form a blessed mountain top, dance naked
I give of this to you, our rememberances in virtual reality, it is a heart you possess, your glory I desire