if ever i were to get married---if i should so dare to---
i would travel any distance to reach the virgin mountains
where we would carve our path along her supple curves
just like the blinding highway that cleaves her in two
until at last we found ourselves
upon a white plaster church in salem
our bridal gowns stained brown and green
at the hem and knees, golden granules
and beads of sparkling nectar
adorn our breasts and shoulders
as we approach the iron gates
and they drape over the crowns of our heads
a mourning veil trimmed in haunting purple
but blacker than this moonless night
we kiss beneath the shroud and don't pull back
to reveal our woven lips and life-threads
in their tapestry of indecipherable roots and branches
which one day will bud and blossom,
then fruit and fall and rot away
to bear seed or pit in skeletal pith
stark white as the sharp plaster church
against such a scorched and smothered sky
but for tonight we are guided by a distant star
and consummated as we are we travel on to Bethlehem
and satisfy the hunger of this new body made whole
in the holy spear through the hillside's east-most breast
YOU ARE READING
completely unbecoming
Poesiayear three of miscellaneous poetry and the conclusion to my sunflower trilogy.
