The Small God – A Poem

Cover our daughter. Instill in her
a locust heart.
It is not a covenant we can make.

She in the den with rich mahogany eyes
reads Milton with distrust.
“How far is love?
Is it boundless as the green?” she asks,

and I am held breathless.

Captive and suffering.

“There is a danger in the silhouette, you see?
The sheer guise it represents,
the madness that’s found in the contours
of the body.

Contempt drives us, though. It is our one shared
virtue,” she laughs

while crossing the room, the light slowly failing
with each step
against her rising shadow.

Her arms are defenseless, and yet they respond
only with pearled indifference
to the slightest touch
of chill in the air.

She shifts the weight of her loneliness delicately
into me. She grows
as I diminish
beneath her.

I am the small god worthlessly seeking penance.
Fastened to the stone. Cast into the dark under-
currents
of a deprived world.

She devours my restraints.

Out and beyond the waking sun drifts blind.
The countryside falls into ruin.

The Prophecy of Rain – A Poem

If we could disguise our minds
crimson dark and rest under
the emotional imbalance it
may afford, what then?

And what now?

I don’t bring salvation. Only
interruptions between waves
of seclusion.

Bring us together.

Where white streets bleed into
the yellow sky
I overhear a lover’s confession, shared
tenderly, secretly on
angels breath, and feel my flesh crawl.

The prophecy of rain beats into us. It’s
life attested. A crawling illusion
of self
sundered, seeping into cracks
of adopted skin.

Electric winds blow.

Trace lines of communication. To
remain oblivious, we speak.
Words desperately littered into instruments
of our own abandonment. But

now

let’s go. Let’s watch as the oregano blooms
in the garden.
Our feet cooled by bare stones.