Sandras Cisneros: Poem 3

Night Madness Poem


There's a poem in my head
like too many cups of coffee.
A pea under twenty eiderdowns.
A sadness in my heart like stone.
A telephone. And always my
Night madness that outs like bats
across this Texas sky.


I'm the crazy lady they warned you about.
The she of rumor talked about -
and worse, who talks.


It's no secret.
I'm here. Under a circle of light.
The light always on, resisting a glass,
an easy cigar. The kind


who reels the twilight sky.
Swoop circling.
I'm witch woman high
on tobacco and holy water.


I'm a woman delighted with her disasters.
They give me something to do.
A profession of sorts.
Keeps me industrious
And of some servicable use.


In dreams the origami of the brain
Opens like a fist, a pomegranate,
an expensive geometry.


Not true.
I haven't a clue
Why I'm rumpled tonight.


Choose your weapon.
Mine--the telephone, my tongue.
Both black as a gun.


I have the magic of words,
the power to charm and kill at will.
To kill myself or to aim haphazardly.
And kill you.