genius loci, they run the gamut
from harpsichord repairers to
rodomontade gin millers to writers
of the signet - some swarthy, some
albino,

they take to the woods
in concealment of coteline
secrets, that kind of white
muslin that is virgin, but of
old lusting, the smell of
turpentine's sexed fixative,

when the forest calls
their names, the genius loci
give a raree show, a peep of
genital rondelet -  a bawdy
refrain repeated several times
to manifest a specter unknown
to the ouija board, we raise our
tankards to Bacchus, and unzip
our labial dreams,

we throw down the gauntlet,
the glove of defiance, superfluous
and rebellious, our nature wondering
why no one plays tiddlywinks anymore,
the disks outflipping the tarot pentacles,
the rabbit lands in a bowl upside down,
we scratch her belly and she claws the
hell out of our wrist where veins bleed,

we look up at the top lantern
in heaven burning so bright, our
nerve fibers stretching to ethereal
zenith in filaments of where they say
there are no limits, no galanty show
throwing off shadows, for it is always
Light up there, genius loci abounding
in hinterland, the sphere of influence.

Copyright Ms. Sage Sweetwater, firebrand lesbian novelist