JASMINE NIGHTS

(starts with “hush little baby”)
Its 5 am,
Her voice,
scream across the innocent clouds
That stroke the sky,
like bristles from vincent vango’s paintbrush.
Stars ablaze in the sky like emergency flares.

Dawn creeps across the horizon
like teens
scared because they broke curfew,
and ashamed for bringing home
A dishonorable presence such as the sun.

Fitting...
For the ferocious night
that scared angels away like Haitian children fleeing from the toppling Lego-like buildings
or like drywall that falls when Hurricane Katrina comes home.

The room was dark,
everything sterilized.
The beeping from EKG machine sounded in her ears like,
Thor's hammer piercing
the last nail into her heart.
She layed in bed.
Like Jesus after the crucifixion ,
IV's and painkillers drifted through her veins,
and resulting in a temporary calm.
While her conscious is sits at the table of regret,
playing Russian Roulette with Satan.
He Tempts her to give up and swallow every powder colored the pill on the table,
convincing her unforgiving fingers to pop the vicaden top.

leaving her in her deathbed of misery.

She has the grace of a dove,
the direction of a mother goose with her young,
and under her wild rose rib cage, lies the heart of God.
for 9 months she fed my cousin,
like the jungle feeds tiger lily seeds in rich soil.
she was her fetus flower,
Jasmine,
Like the flower scared of day
So it blossoms at midnight,
Or the princess waiting for Aladdin to discover her
in the "warm middle east",
or like the precious crafted minerals being
fashioned in the center of her cervix,

Her time came to be introduced into the world.
she came into the world,
not screaming,
not trying to break away form the doctors arms,
she was as quiet and as peaceful as the eye of a storm.
Singing her silent solo of innocence.

She was a still-born baby,
Her mother held her....
The gust of doctors and nurses
swiftly pulled her away from Jasmine like
100 mile per hour Katrina winds
that uprooted weeping willows.
Her cries made the Emergency room resound more like a battlefield,
than a hospital room.
Have you ever planted a life and never saw the Harvest?
She screams to the wind like they are ears of God from her cracked soul
"Why did you bless me with a curse?"
And " How can you steal my harvest?"

Her body breaking on the internally to keep the external appearance of stability,
Her emotions and anguish flood the bed,
splashed on the floor,
and seeped into the drain,
The worst part is not trying to remember a person you knew,
but rather dealing with the torment of getting to know the daughter she never had.
The time of year made the dilemma worse,
the devil played a prank that took 9 months
to accomplish.
They will meet again,
in the streets made of golden cobble brick and luminescent halo's,
Mansions encrusted with emerald and sapphires.

My Aunt will hold Jasmine in her arms ,
rocking her to sleep as she sings,
like she did
April 1, 1997.
(ends with “hush little baby”)