fumbling with this slight of hand

with what I want to give

and keep out of your view

but I was once a trickster too

when I was only known

by the name the world calls you

and hunger hidden in the smoke

and vanished in the mirrors

was the illusion for getting by

when no one calls the starving

to the table for the feast

but charity abandon

and the ones who pick the bones

of weak

but now when words are wells

that get drawn from far too deep

how do I keep from casting up 

the needs and all the wants

when the danger in the sentiments

has always been the echoes

of not far enough to hear

nor close enough for heard

to know just what was said

and all these things are spilled

upon the wind and turned 

to daggers made of ice

so that while one hand is trying to divine

the purest of the fire

to thaw the words to getting through 

the other burns incineration 

to cull the reach 

of the selfish in desire

and then somewhere 

because the world has made me tired

of a heart played like a parlour game

and the ways I've tricked myself

I get the two confused

with one hand numb and frozen

and the other charred and burned

and then all I can hope to be

is courageous here instead

in the humble way that honest only can

and say that I am just a woman

trying to forget herself

for all but what her love can send

and still the wanting is the fuel for flames 

and the words land chill-laced 

with the wind

and I am trickster nevermore

when cold arrives 

where intent was warm to send

and the heart here burns 

and beats 

and then it burns again