REQUIEM
Water flings itself against the land
And ripples bear this love-swamped body away.
We are one, the water and I, the flagellant and the wanton suicide –
Masochists remade in an ecstasy of pain,
Sister captives caught in the eternal tug of war
Between a traitor earth and that bitch-goddess moon.
Once, breathing was a ritual compulsion
so like the desire — my desire — doomed to die in virgin silence
A devil congealed behind my lips, condemning me to hell,
But still demanding dissolution in you, my insubstantial prince.
Who knows about the push and pull of love: I don’t.
I’m just the mad girl who sang of rue to welcome death,
her flowered corpse on full collision course with someone else’s dream.
16 April 2011
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