The question that long gripped

My cranium like a shining scarab

Is answered: Okame is my muse.

Once I thought my muse was a moth

Flailing against the stained glass

Of a church. Another time I was sure

It was a yellow leaf in the wind.

But no, it’s Okame, who charmed

The sun with her bare shoulders

And dance that shimmered

Beneath a gossamer gown

Of woven cherry blossoms.

O Okame—I will lacerate my chest

With a tattoo of your smiling face

So the lavender ink of your lips

Seeps into my blood bringing a gift

Only a goddess can give—

The complete disrobing of my heart.

Dennis Trujillo is a high school math teacher who happens to love poetry. He began submitting poems for publication just one year ago, and his poems have appeared in The Storyteller, Wild Goose Poetry Review, and Eye on Life. Although his math background is perhaps a bit unusual for a poet, he takes inspiration from Borges's edict that poetry is a combination of fire and algebra.