Aphrodite

In a season of thorns
All dreams are numbered and invoiced.
The moon has no gender.
Castles have fallen for the last time
Into the sea. I awake to my changes,
To a vision of my mind burst
Into a shower of ten-thousand needles
That never reach ground.

Who can I tell and how can I tell them?

It’s winter in my eyes. It is arctic.
The bed I rise from each morning
Is afraid to let me go. The sun
Comes up, a digit from a fist.

I’ve touched the gown of the goddess,

Suffered the furor, burned in her fire.
I return to my right mind
To discover, past the reefs of speech,
A kind of calm within desire.
Silent for months, I relearn my words
One by one, this one for peach
And this one for plum.