" Semele"
I dreamt l drank the moon,
felt the wind petal me darker into black.
For moments I stood
barefoot beside pomegranates
like a gypsy in a pile of skirts,
emulates, beads, my stomach
blooming with the enormous
weight of baby.
i.
I know only this –
The smell of mountains,
and the way its silver blues into dusk.
How life ripples like a fish beneath my skin
and my heart floats, a vessel of leaves.
These are the things l carry.
ii.
At first l could only curl into the edges
of his mind, tumble as a flower
into the well of his mouth, loving him
for that gravity of descent, the delicate ballet
as the heart spirals
downwards.
Each night with baskets of olives
l go deep into the forest scattering fruit.
Loons cry out as demi-gods stagger,
mindless, their faces an agony
of hunger. I run to the lightning tree
where Zeus waits in its severed boughs.
iii.
He claims to be a higher god.
Must l pretend to see him there?
a star burning so hot
he must burrow
into the cool of space for sleep?
iv
The sky quaked into breath,
a heartbeat cracking open the air with light,
one thousand mirrors reveal a god,
reveal a god, reveal h..i..m
All l can do is curl into the crevice of his spine.
Leaves rush me, l am the weight
of darkness falling into itself.
No lashes, no eyes, only the furious
throwing out limbless parts of themselves.
This is how l'm to die
where only a god can remain,
and what he carries
© 2004 Lisa Megraw
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