I have unstopped the dinner wine
to flood abandoned riverbeds;
broke the dam that kept canals in dust,
a current to the river’s gate where I
will drink the ebb of the estuary.
You have shaken off your skin
and brokered an evil truce –
how strong, how well developed you have made
your bones, your cheeks, your chin.
I have shaken the earth’s great bones,
and drawn asunder the drifting plates,
only to raise a solemn mountain
that divides the sea from the plains,
and upon it raise my goats.
You have kept your veins well-hid
in a box on your mantelpiece,
and you carry all that you wish to steal
concealed beneath your seat
like household gods.
I have ploughed the land in furrows;
ready to seed the earth with grains,
my fields consume the Northern valleys
and wait now only for the rain.
You have spun my hair like twine;
a tiger’s cradle on delicate nails.
And you have a token, a morning star
for flowers at our table.
And you have eyes of the normal size
that seem to capture cosmos.
And you find glory in what you conceal,
and I, in finding it, if I’m able.