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  • about
    • history
    • staff bios
    • community outreach
    • affiliations
    • contact
  • current issue
    • read Issue 26
    • letter from the editor
    • looking glass spring 2023
    • interview with Raina J. Leon
    • interview with Sarah Fawn Montgomery
  • submit
    • submission guidelines
  • looking glass
    • through the looking glass
  • editorial content
    • book reviews
    • opinion
    • interviews
  • flash glass
    • flash glass 2023
    • flash glass 2022
    • flash glass 2021
    • flash glass 2020
    • flash glass 2019
    • flash glass 2018
    • flash glass 2017
    • flash glass 2016
    • flash glass 2015
  • media
    • art
    • audio
    • video
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    • award nominees
    • read and order back issues
  • Master of Arts in Writing program
    • about Writing Arts at Rowan University
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Glassworks

Canticle of IdolS
by Raina J. Leon

a selection of poems from the collection published by Custom Words | October 2008

Picture
Addict                    

Mahogany maple syrup
runs in spider web lines.

My father never uses the stuff, he
eats pancakes, powdered, butter moist.

When I was a child, he knew more of straightness.
Lines and razors were friends.

One night he tried to die by his hand. A girl
jumped before he walked to the ledge.

Her mangled body wore the rails like a girdle,
her limbs so thin they became a blood putty. Angel,

​her name. They had to lift the train to take her out.
Scenes in the Life of a Lesser Angel

​
I.
I borrow wings from other angels, coast
the streets to find feathers loosely attached
to slender silver ties. With care, I close the catch
and fasten cardboard stiffened form so close

I cannot breathe or fly for the air
pushed out into a world in masquerade.
I am African. I am goddess with flare
sounding the trumpets. I call out God.

Meaning changes like sea water in storm.
I part the crowds until, beaten, my wings
fly, fall, litter the streets. I cradle the newborn
twins and realize that I am fallen,

a lesser angel, wingless and depressed.
I am seductress unpetaled, undressed.

II.
dress her navel in lotus flowers
to swim in the pool of her abdomen
twine orange blossoms in her hair
and smell the scent of oils and natural perfume
kiss her nipples so that they become pyramids
wet from a summer rain of tongue
press her down into soft linens with hard
body folding into hers like tributary waters
warm her hands against heated chest
that covers drum rhythms resounding

men, worship your women this way
women, flush at the adoration
and you will know how I feel
​when he touches my hand


Picture

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