Patterns for Yama's Necktie

1.

My husband gets out of bed and puts on his noose.

2.

I saw you in a grassy field swinging a lasso,
dressed in black, with a flat black hat
like a character from an old Western.
I asked you why you put on this costume.
You told me, "I adapt to circumstances."
I said I would love to talk with you.
You replied, "I know you would, my dear,
but I will only talk to you if you let me
place my noose around your neck."
You let it hang there lightly that time.

3.

The dark angel rips me out of my body
and drags me to the edge of the abyss.
"But you are the one who taught me to fly!"
"See if you can remember now," he mocks me,
bending me over the windy chasm.
I tell him I've got a job, I'm gluten free,
I'm not meant to die for a long time.

His laughter is the clack of cicada shells,
the clatter of knuckle bones.
"You've forgotten the game."
What game? I don't understand.
All I can do is scream into the hot wind,
"I'M NOT DONE WITH!"

He loosens his grip and then teases my neck 
with his fingers before he says,
"If you are nice to people you can go back."
He blows a kiss that throws me back to my body.
He doesn't tell me he has given me an invisible gift.
I am wearing his noose around my neck.

- Mosswood Hollow July 22, 2016.

verses from a work in progress

Drawing by RM