to begin, she blinds
herself of memory

& suddenly his hands are
a deer born in the dark

she paws him
his brag of dust

his slate & husk
her tender gorse

mist of stonewound
rain married to musk

all the orchards baubled with
antlers, damsons, foxholes

remember his girl, remember
her legs cocked like a handgun

the wall, a brocade of catalana moths
as if the light sequinned each crucifix

to body a bridge – halved at mortise
tarsus limned with an anemic hum

take her veins, her viral arbors
o’ Endymion, where

were you, when she
was a livid asymptote

when gravity was a claw
trapped in the striae

of uncoupled stars
was grotto & torch

a rosary of razors
a god at triage

all the burn-marks
all the snakepit altars

holy of such honeyed
rum tinder in her

arrowed songbird
such dagger-brush

as if lightning had
wandered into that

sheep of skin

 

 

seshat : Egyptian goddess of writing