Rejoicing Well

[..."she" is sexless, ageless 
her beauty and power
all the more terrifying...]


She circles about,
waiting for me to attend to her,
while I polish this rusty disc.

The cessation shines 
through the cracks
crusting the earth and
illuminating the dust.

My location is lost and 
I am without guide 
or guard or point.

Children speak 
in so many tongues 
while mine lolls 
mutely in my mouth.

I want to tell her stories 
but she runs and hides.
 
We made love 
in the shade of a tree by a pool 
and now she is done with me.
She will tell me no more.

I asked too much.
She has run off 
to the land of her sisters,
to lie in the kingdom of her thighs.

Her ankles speak to the fish.
Her eyes spell doom to the sky.

Her belly knows what it needs 
while I find her appetites 
a frightening cuisine.

Piled on platters polished from a stone 
I’ll never know the depth of, these dishes,
her delicacies, are lost on me.

She will not deign to dine from my chest.
I have no bosom for her, no breath
to be found in this chamber 
that hums and vibrates emptily.

Still, she says 
she wants me.
She tempts me 
with her promised presences.
Her primordial formalities 
make me uncomfortable.

I want her, yet
I fear my need for her.
I have not the stomach for her.
She would have mine on a plate 
to examine its contents,
to know what hatches inside me, 
to hear what makes me snap.

She would take the two bones 
of my legs for her double flute.

She lies upon the grass
by the still cool pool and runs 
into the woods when I call her. 

I beckon her, but
I will not lie with her there
in the shadowed wood
where she disappears
in her dark music.

I will sit by the pool, 
watch fish swim
in the tree-tops
and wait, trembling, 
for her mother.